Our Challenge to Welsh Government and the Arts Council

by Dr Alicia Stark, Business Development Director

Tanio welcomes the illuminating new independently-conducted report, released yesterday by the Arts Council of Wales, ‘Assessing the Economic Impact of the Arts on Health and Healthcare Services in Wales,’ detailing the cost-savings to health and wellbeing that the arts achieve across the country. The report’s comprehensive findings highlight just how integral the arts are to people’s overall health, and the impact the arts can have on the NHS: ‘the estimated financial value of health and productivity benefits through all arts engagement in Wales…is at least £588 million per year,’ and for every £1 of investment from the Arts Council into multi-year funded organisations like Tanio, there is a financial return on investment (ROI) of £11.08.

These figures are staggering, but they financially highlight something we already know – the arts are essential to the way of life in Wales, and are pivotal to helping people live healthier, more fulfilling lives. The arts are a specific and vital means to cut healthcare costs to the public, and are worthy of investment and platforming at every level of government and within the NHS.

At Tanio, every arts project, activity, and workshop we offer has a health and wellbeing benefit to it, helping our local communities to improve their mental health, increase their sense of belonging, build their communities, and reduce their isolation and loneliness.

One of our flagship and award-winning programmes, Breathing Space Ignite, has proven in its 5+ years of delivery to achieve all these things. Breathing Space Ignite works because it is reliable (with sessions taking place in 6 locations more than 40 weeks per year), it is led by experienced artist facilitators (with understanding of community arts, person-centred creativity, and safeguarding training), and it dynamically adapts and responds to the needs of people in the room (with a trained Wellbeing Assistant in every session, who supports the mental health of all participants, and can offer extra help to someone going through a hard time). Indeed, Breathing Space Ignite won Best Wellbeing Service 2025 at the Mental Health and Wellbeing Wales Awards, for its excellent provision and uplifting outcomes.

Last year, Tanio used similar models to those in the new report to calculate the approximate financial value of Breathing Space Ignite. Like the researchers who wrote the report, we kept our estimates conservative, ensuring that we did not overestimate or overinflate Breathing Space Ignite’s impact.

What we found was astonishing.

Breathing Space Ignite saves the NHS at least £89,670 every year, by supporting participants so they seek fewer GP appointments, have fewer attendances in A&E, and use fewer prescription medications. This calculation is bolstered by our recent evaluation of Breathing Space Ignite using the Most Significant Change model; that evaluation highlighted the enormous mental health impact of the service, including three different participants who told us that attending Breathing Space Ignite stopped them from taking their own lives.

Additionally, Breathing Space Ignite saves social services at least £118,639 every year. And this figure does not include the countless hours of time saved to social workers, NHS doctors and nurses, and the overlapping support staff who work between public services to help people.

That’s an overall savings of at least £208,309 to the public sector from Breathing Space Ignite alone. The ROI data from the new report suggests that we have certainly underestimated this total; the wider arts in health and wellbeing activities and workshops that Tanio provides are likely saving the public sector millions of pounds.

Tanio are so grateful for the investment of funders like the Arts Council of Wales and Bridgend County Borough Council, whose funding of Breathing Space Ignite has allowed us to continue supporting hundreds of people each year.

However, the current funding for Breathing Space Ignite will soon be drawing to a close, and Tanio are fighting to find new ways of financially sustaining the service. We face this obstacle with Breathing Space Ignite every few years, as one funding stream ends and we must seek new ones. Offering a long-term arts in health programme, even one as longstanding and proven as Breathing Space Ignite, is a difficult and challenging road; funders so often only give money to what is ‘new,’ and not necessarily to what is proven to work.

And so these incredible findings from the ‘Assessing the Economic Impact of the Arts on Health and Healthcare Services in Wales’ report and from our own research give us great hope and pride, revealing just how much of an impact we are having on our Welsh communities.

But they also raise serious questions: How can we ensure long-term investment in arts in health provision that is already working? How can we guarantee that creative services will not disappear, when people rely so heavily on them? How can the mindset and the funding streams of Welsh Government and other public bodies be shifted, to include arts in health as a worthwhile investment, knowing that it will reduce their workloads and costs if it only receives proper investment?

Tanio are dedicated to finding solutions to these questions and will continue to advocate until arts in health is a sustainable provision available to everyone in Wales. We challenge Welsh Government and the Arts Council to take these findings and ensure that arts in health is a viable, fully-funded tool to better the lives of the people of Wales.

How can you help?

Click the ‘donate’ button above to give to Tanio, helping us to sustain Breathing Space Ignite and our other programmes that support the health and wellbeing of people in geographically isolated areas of South Wales. Or sign up to play the Bridgend Community Lotto, and pick Tanio as your chosen charity. No matter where you live in the UK, you can play and have the chance to win prizes as you support our work. Every donation and every lottery ticket makes a big impact for Tanio!