Creative health special interest group

The creative health group has been set up to support and inspire GPs who have a special interest in creativity, and who advocate for creative health within general practice.

Members of the creative health group smile together wearing casual clothes.

Flourishing for ourselves and across generations of GPs

Our aim 

  • Flourishing: promote wellbeing through the arts for patients and clinicians
  • Transformation and culture change: encourage holistic care and practices with reflection through the arts
  • Scholarship and practice: build creative health evidence and strategy addressing all levels of primary care (education, patient care, ICBs, social prescribing etc)

Group outputs

The GP SIG meets on a quarterly basis, but also communicates through a range of platforms including WhatsApp and newsletters. Also, the GP SIG holds an annual study day.

  • A new Creative Health Group has launched on the RCGP forum to support and inspire RCGP members to explore creative health.
  • Catherine Jenkins, a member of the Creative Health SIG, co-authored an article titled 'Introduction to Creative Health' aimed at GP registrars, alongside Kathryn Lambert and Will Mackintosh. It was published in the RGCP InnovAiT journal in 2024.
  • GP Support for Creative Health Advocacy continues. In the summer of 2024, NCCH appointed Professor Martin Marshall CBE, the former Chair of the Royal College of GPs and current Chair of the Nuffield Trust, as the Chair of the National Centre for Creative Health. More recently, in November 2024, a new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Creative Health was launched. This APPG is led by Dr. Simon Opher, the newly elected MP for Stroud and a former GP.

Group members

The Creative Health SIG has over 50 active members and is administrated by three co-leads:

  • Professor. Louise Younie is a GP and Professor of Medical Education. 
  • Dr. Kathleen Wenaden is a GP, Clinical Director of a Primary Care Network in Hackney, London, and an NHS GP appraiser, and Poet. 
  • Alexis Butt is the General Manager at NCCH.  

Regional Leads 

If you would like to get in touch with your Regional GP Lead, please email Alexis on info@ncch.org.uk and she will put you in touch.

  • Linda Miller - Central/North West London
  • Nicola Gill - Yorkshire and the Humber
  • Amal Lad - Birmingham
  • Rahhiel Riasat - East of England

Key Stakeholders

  • NCCH and the RCGP 

Contact us 

We are an inclusive group who welcome new members who share our passion or who are interested in finding out more. The GP SIG welcomes GP practice-wide membership from primary healthcare professionals. So, if you are a GP (retired GP), representing a GP practice team, medical student, or clinical practitioner and would be interested in getting involved in this group, please contact NCCH's general manager on info@ncch.org.uk.

Find out more about who is in our GP SIG with our GP SIG Network map, which includes great examples of creative health in practice. 

For more information, visit the National Centre for Creative Health.