CNWL arts group welcomes adults from mental health hubs

Since early 2024, the CNWL Arts in Health service in north-west London has been running a stepped-down arts programme for adults leaving Community Mental Health Hubs, so people finishing intensive therapy can move straight into regular creative groups rather than losing contact with NHS support.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust describes Arts in Health as a long-running partnership between clinicians and artists, offering in-person studio sessions and group visits to galleries and cultural institutions designed to help participants rebuild confidence, social connections and everyday routines after specialist mental health care.

The trust itself is one of the largest in the capital, with nearly 7,000 staff delivering more than 300 health services across 150 sites and in other community settings, providing care to around a third of London’s population according to CNWL international statistics for 2018–2019, which means arts sessions sit alongside a wide range of community and hospital teams.

Within the Arts in Health offer, participants are typically able to attend sessions for up to a year and have one-to-one reviews later in the programme, so adults who have experienced serious mental health difficulties can set personal aims, keep track of progress and plan next steps in work, study or community life while remaining linked to familiar NHS professionals.

Partnership projects with organisations such as Two Temple Place and Mindful Studio extend the model beyond clinic rooms, placing small groups in heritage buildings and creative workspaces where they work alongside professional artists, which organisers say helps people practise travel, time-keeping and social interaction in ordinary cultural environments rather than purely clinical ones.

At city level, the 2024 Understanding Creative Health in London report for the Greater London Authority estimates that creative health workers in hospital settings alone meet and support around 2.9 million people each year, underlining how programmes like CNWL Arts in Health now contribute to day-to-day care and recovery alongside more traditional psychological and medical services.

By focusing on inclusive access to the arts for adults with lived experience of mental health difficulties, and by keeping travel local to where people already receive community care, the CNWL initiative is framed as one small part of wider efforts to narrow gaps in who can benefit from creative health offers that are increasingly recognised as part of standard support in London.

21 November 2025 14:27 By London Health News Desk