The £11 Argument for the Arts: Why Creativity Is Wales’s Most Cost‑Effective Health Intervention

When Arts Council Wales unveiled new research at the National Waterfront Museum, it didn’t just add another report to the shelf. It delivered a sharp, data‑driven reminder of something the Welsh arts community has known instinctively for decades: art doesn’t just enrich life — it extends it, strengthens it, and saves public money while doing so.

Bangor University’s Centre for Health Economics and Medicines Evaluation (CHEME) has now quantified what many practitioners, participants and policymakers have long felt in their bones. Engagement with the arts generates at least £588 million in annual health and wellbeing benefits across Wales — a staggering figure that reframes creativity not as a cultural add‑on, but as a frontline health intervention.

This is the first national‑level investigation of its kind, and its findings are nothing short of transformative.

The Numbers Wales Can’t Afford to Ignore

The report’s headline figures are the sort that make even the most hardened budget‑holder sit up straight:

• £11.08 return for every £1 invested by Arts Council Wales in health, wellbeing and productivity

• £5 million annual savings if dance programmes for older people were scaled to prevent falls

• £9.5 million in benefits if just 5% of young people in NHS mental health pathways accessed arts programmes

• Up to £3.5 million saved each year by supporting NHS staff wellbeing through arts engagement

These aren’t soft, sentimental numbers. They’re hard economic outcomes — the kind that Treasury officials usually demand before approving anything that isn’t a hospital wing or a new MRI scanner.

And yet, here they are. Delivered by dance classes, choirs, creative writing groups, community theatre, visual arts workshops, and the thousands of artists and facilitators who keep Wales culturally alive.

A Launch That Proved the Point

The report was launched during a Dance to Health class — a programme already known for reducing falls among older adults. Strictly Come Dancing’s Amy Dowden joined participants, embodying the joy, connection and physical vitality that the data now backs up.

It was a fitting setting. The research shows that the arts don’t just “feel good”; they change health trajectories, reduce pressure on the NHS, and improve quality of life in ways that clinical interventions alone cannot.

Art and Health: Not Opposites, but Partners

In times of austerity, the arts are often the first to face cuts. They’re framed as optional, decorative, or — the most dangerous word of all — nice. But this report dismantles that narrative.

To cut the arts is, quite literally, to cut health provision.

As our own contributor and long‑standing arts advocate Chris J Birch put it during his recent TEDx Bute Street talk at The Senedd:

“Once we’re all at the peak of our physical fitness because we’ve funded Health at the cost of Art; where will we go and what will we do? The Arts is what we do, to feel good and it’s the reason to be Fit and Well, as well as making us fit and well simultaneously.

It’s a line that captures the heart of this debate. Health is not simply the absence of illness. It is the presence of meaning, connection, expression, and joy — all things the arts deliver in abundance.

Wales: Small Nation, Big Cultural Impact

Wales has always punched above its weight creatively. From our choirs to our poets, our festivals to our film industry, our community arts organisations to our world‑class performers, the nation consistently produces cultural output far beyond what its population size or funding levels might predict.

This report confirms that the impact isn’t just cultural — it’s economic, social and medical.

Wales invests modestly in the arts compared to many European neighbours, yet the return is extraordinary. In a climate where every pound is scrutinised, the arts emerge not as a cost centre but as a high‑yield investment in national wellbeing.

A Call to Policymakers: Stop Treating Art as Optional

The findings should serve as a wake‑up call to decision‑makers across Wales. When budgets tighten, the instinct is to protect “core services” and trim everything else. But this research shows that the arts are a core service — one that directly reduces NHS demand, improves mental health outcomes, and strengthens communities.

Cutting the arts to fund health is a false economy.

Funding the arts is funding health.

Where We Go From Here

This report gives Wales something powerful: evidence. Evidence that creativity is not a luxury. Evidence that artists are essential workers in the nation’s wellbeing. Evidence that cultural participation is as vital to public health as physical activity or social care.

The challenge now is ensuring that this evidence shapes policy, funding decisions, and public understanding.

If Wales wants a healthier future, it must invest not only in hospitals and treatments, but in studios, rehearsal rooms, galleries, community centres, and the people who bring them to life.

Because the arts don’t just help us live longer.

They help us live better.