New Baring Foundation Publication: Every care home a creative home

Access to culture is a human right, as much in residential care as when living in the community. The benefits to health and wellbeing of participation in arts and culture, including in older age, are well established.

Creativity and cultural activity in England’s c.15,000 care or nursing homes is often dependent on the occasional champion, often a manager or activities coordinator, which has led to a lottery of provision.

This report sets out how a systems approach – involving the arts sector and social care sector – could help make access to arts and culture more widely available in care homes.

It concludes with 20 mutually re-enforcing recommendations for Government, care homes, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), care home infrastructure bodies, arts organisations, artists and arts funders.

Many of the changes needed would take little or no resources. In particular, the report calls for the CQC to increase its focus on this issue, including through inspections.