The National Centre for Creative Health and Royal Society for Public Health recently published their Creative Health Research Roundup for 2025. This rich document “brings together a wide range of creative health research, practice-based evaluation, and cross-systems strategy outputs published in 2025”. It’s a fabulous resource for anyone interested in this field, and particularly its application across a broad range of sectors including mental health and wellbeing, children and families, ageing, nature, strategy and policy. An important feature of this document is that all the collated resources are publicly available, making them accessible to all.
A number of publications are directly relevant to the wellbeing of healthcare professionals – you can find these below:
The Burnout Booklet
This beautifully illustrated booklet draws on lived experience of burnout to offer a range of metaphorical ways of describing burnout. I often talk about how the word burnout can mean many different things, and it’s important to understand the individual experience of this to be able to respond in helpful ways. This booklet can help individuals find ways of expressing their experience and also help supporting professionals think in a more nuanced way about the issue.
Creative hobbies and work recovery
This research project explored ways in which creative hobbies can support work recovery. This is a concept I often explore with health professionals I work with. It is the idea that what we do outside of work can help to replenish what is depleted by our experiences at work. It requires us to be attuned to our needs and be intentional about how we can support ourselves with what we invest our time in outside of work. Creative hobbies offer ways to meet a range of needs through supporting detachment from work, providing a sense of mastery, lifting our mood, and connection with values. This article describes Hill’s research in a very digestible way, and offers useful practical applications.
Creative Toolkit for palliative care professionals
This publication explores the growing pressures faced by professionals working in palliative care, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, and highlights how a culture of prioritising patient needs often leads staff to neglect their own wellbeing. It presents a co-produced, arts-based “Creative Toolkit” designed to support the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual health of staff through reflection, relaxation, and connection.
Drawing on a small-scale case study, the paper demonstrates how creative approaches can help staff process difficult experiences and build a sense of community, with highly positive participant feedback. While the findings are context-specific and further research is needed, the publication makes a valuable contribution by showing how creative, arts-based interventions can be meaningfully integrated into workforce wellbeing support.
Art therapy to reduce burnout
This study examines whether a brief, structured group art therapy programme can improve burnout and mental wellbeing among hospital-based healthcare professionals. In a large, multicentre randomised controlled trial involving NHS staff across a range of roles, participants were assigned either to six weekly art therapy sessions or to a wait-list control group receiving usual support.
The findings show that those who took part in the art therapy programme experienced significant reductions in emotional exhaustion, alongside improvements in stress, anxiety, depression, and detachment from work, with benefits sustained at three-month follow-up. While the study had some limitations, including its reliance on a wait-list control and limited subgroup analysis, it provides strong evidence that a relatively short, manualised and theory-informed art therapy intervention can meaningfully support staff wellbeing and could be integrated into hospital workforce support services. The lead author, Megan Tjasink has been a guest on the When Work Hurts podcast – you can listen to her talk about her work here.
The Body Hotel Self-Care Suite
The Body Hotel Self-Care Suite: Evaluation By Teresa Filipponi, Carolyn Wallace, and Thania Acarón
This publication evaluates The Body Hotel Self-Care Suite, a creative, movement- and body-based programme developed to support the wellbeing of palliative care staff within NHS Wales. Focusing on teams at Velindre NHS Trust, the study explores whether embodied, creative practices can enhance wellbeing, psychological safety, and day-to-day working relationships.
Drawing on interviews and pre- and post-programme questionnaire data, the evaluation found that participants reported increased energy, emotional resilience, self-awareness, confidence, and self-compassion, alongside a stronger sense of connection with colleagues. Staff also described applying tools from the programme to manage stress, communicate more openly, and foster more supportive team dynamics. While based on a small, self-selecting sample, the findings suggest that creative, body-based approaches can play a valuable role in supporting workforce mental health and cultivating more compassionate and sustainable workplace cultures.
It’s clear that the arts and creative practice can play an important role in supporting the wellbeing of healthcare staff. Creativity & Wellbeing Week is coming up (18th – 24th May 2026) – this is a great opportunity to consider how you might be able to bring more creativity into your workplace and life.
On 19th May I am running an online workshop for doctors with Dr Alison Smith of Earth & Bloom called Shaping Self Compassion. It’s a hands on workshop using clay to explore and nurture compassion for yourself, something many of us in helping professions struggle to access. It will be a gentle evening combining the soothing and tactile experience of working with clay and other natural materials with a listening circle. Booking closes on 5th May (to give us time to get your goodie bag to you), so secure your place today!
