NHS x the arts: what can policy-makers learn from artists and their process?

I recently tried to persuade a senior civil servant that the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) should consider a collab for writing its 10-year health plan: DHSC x Sir Grayson Perry. She looked sceptical, but here is why I think it’s a good idea. 

There is a lot that health policy-makers and think tanks can learn from artists and their process – the way they see, understand and analyse the health and care system and use the tools of their trade to explain and seek to change it.  

What might think tanks and policy-makers learn from artists? 

Generating radical new thinking

During a recent speech at The King’s Fund, Keir Starmer set out a vision for health care he said might amount to ‘the biggest re-imagining of the NHS since its birth’. Soundings from the Department of Health and Social Care are that Wes Streeting is not interested in incrementalism, but policy-makers can be criticised for not being radical enough. Artists can teach us a lot about stepping outside of today’s norms and constraints, seeing a different reality and highlighting the fundamental changes needed to get us there (Kaleidoscope’s sci-fi writing competition Writing the Future is a great example of this). 

Showing the importance of history and context

The antecedents of current policy issues often trace back decades. We saw this with the Grenfell Tower disaster and years of fracture between the community and statutory authorities. Writers can teach us about helping people ‘see’ this path dependency and understand how the deep roots of issues affect choices about the best course of action today. Barbara Kingsolver’s brilliant novel Demon Copperhead opened my eyes to the long history of poverty and exploitation in Appalachia and how this contributed to the devastating impact of the opioid crisis on that region today. What can we learn from her process – the way she understood the issues and their history and used characters help people feel as well as think about their relevance today? 

Portraying lived experience

‘Lived experience’ has become a buzz word in policy circles and can be a powerful tool in helping the health and care system to improve. Think of the way Gwyneth Hughes and James Strong told the story of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, and how this had an immediate impact on the government’s handling of postmasters’ compensation claims. Or the way Rankin conveyed the dignity, dedication and trauma felt by NHS workers during the pandemic in his series of NHS-commissioned portraits. Or how Jack Thorn conceived his brilliant drama Help? about a Liverpool care home during covid and Jodie Comer’s powerful performance in it. 

Distilling complexity

Many of our leadership courses focus on supporting people to navigate complexity and our animation explaining the labyrinthian structure of the NHS of the Fund’s best sellers. What more can we learn from the way abstract artists distil an idea down to its most important parts and represent it in a way that helps people see the essence of an issue? Or the way artists like Grayson Perry understand and represent the origins and complexity of different views on key issues, like with these Brexit ceramics. 

Engaging people in ideas and provoking behaviour change

From the 1980s’ gravestone adverts warning of the dangers of HIV, to health promotion stories planted in Mexican soap operas, and even a rumour that the CIA wrote the Scorpions hit Wind of Change to provoke the break-up of the Soviet Union – there is a long history of artists engaging people in ideas in a way that changes their behaviour and supports the implementation of policy goals. What can we learn from the techniques they use to help us engage people in our thinking and encourage change? 

It’s nothing new to think about art and public policy together – Policy Lab places artists in government policy teams and there are research centres devoted to bringing this type of multidisciplinary thinking into health care.  

I am interested in how understanding more about artists and their process can help us work better, and support health policy-makers to do the same. Part of the reason for writing this blog is to try and persuade artists who look at health and care to speak to us – if you are interested, please get in touch.  

As a new government comes to power, think tanks and policy makers are pushed to bring in new thinking. But ideas that change health and care do not just come from Whitehall (or Cavendish Square). I’m not sure where NHS x The Arts collabs would lead, but bringing different disciplines together is a core part of developing new ideas that inspire radical change, engaging people in their development and bridging the gap between policy and practice.