Andy Burnham: ‘Making space for people to create is how we build a healthier, more hopeful society’

I spend much of my time as mayor talking to people about the pressures that they face and the inequalities that shape their lives – poor health, insecure work, caring responsibilities, loss. Across Greater Manchester I meet people every week who are carrying a lot, often quietly.

People tell me about struggling to get by when work is insecure, about caring for loved ones, about the toll that poor health or loneliness can take. What I’ve learned is that while services and systems matter deeply, they are not enough on their own. People also need ways to make sense of what’s happening in their lives. They need space to speak, to be heard and to recover a sense of agency for themselves and their communities.

That’s where creativity comes in.

Culture is sometimes dismissed as a distraction, a ‘nice to have’. But culture isn’t just about a good night out or escaping into another reality. It’s about making sense of your own reality. Making something new. Saying things differently. Feeling connected when everything feels fragile.

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Across Greater Manchester, we’re seeing just how powerful this can be. We believe deeply in creative health, because we know that creativity can genuinely support people’s health and wellbeing, helping them rebuild confidence, express what they’re going through, find balance and regain a sense of agency when life has knocked them off course.

This way of thinking runs right through our Live Well approach. Live Well is about prevention and neighbourhood health, but it’s also about dignity. It recognises that health isn’t just shaped in hospitals or GP surgeries, but in everyday places: libraries, community centres, arts spaces and in the relationships we have with one another.

Across the city region cultural organisations are working side by side with health services, social care providers and the community and voluntary sector, so that creative health is part of how we help
people feel better and stay well.

These ideas come to life in our work supporting neurodivergent young adults to move closer to good work. Too many talented people are locked out of employment – not because they lack ability, but because traditional routes into jobs simply don’t work for them. Across Greater Manchester, creative organisations like Venture Arts show what’s possible when difference is recognised as a strength, not a problem to be fixed. Through creativity people build confidence and begin to imagine working lives that feel achievable and meaningful.

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This work doesn’t sit in isolation. It reflects our wider push for fair, inclusive employment shaped by people with lived experience themselves, and the work we are doing through the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter and the Bee Neuroinclusive Code of Practice. The message is simple: talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not – unless we design systems that work for real people.

We also see our creative health approach clearly in Breathe, which is run by the English National Opera. This programme supports people living with breathlessness and long-term lung conditions by using gentle breathing techniques drawn from singing and voice work.

In small, supportive groups people learn how to breathe more confidently, manage anxiety linked to breathlessness and feel less alone in what can be an overwhelming experience. For many, it helps them regain a sense of control over their bodies and everyday lives, rather than feeling defined by illness.

Manchester Camerata’s Music in Mind is another flagship creative health programme, using live music making as a form of in-the-moment, person centred care for people living with dementia and their carers. 

The sessions are led by professional musicians and music therapists, supported by trained community ‘music champions’. We now have music cafes across Greater Manchester providing these informal, welcoming sessions, creating moments of joy and connection, relieving loneliness and isolation, reducing fear and stress and supporting identity, expression and emotional wellbeing.

These initiatives are not about art as a distraction, but as a practical form of support – helping people living with breathlessness, anxiety or low mood to regain confidence, connect with others and feel back in control of their lives again. 

Through music, voice and shared creative experience people find ways to manage their health that feel human, dignified and sustaining.

Programmes like these show what prevention really looks like when it is rooted in people’s lived experience and everyday lives, not just in systems and services. They help people build relationships, feel connected to others and access support in ways that are right for them.

What I find most powerful about creative health is that it creates space. Space to rebuild confidence. Space to breathe again. Space to be heard. Space to reconnect with others and talk about what really matters. That’s prevention in the fullest sense – long term, human and rooted in place and people.

Greater Manchester is becoming a creative health city region because it reflects who we are: creative, caring and rooted in community. We know the challenges people face are often complex and longstanding, and we don’t pretend there are easy answers. But we do know that when people feel connected, valued and able to express themselves something begins to shift. Often, it’s that shared space to create and connect that helps people find a way forward.

If we’re serious about prevention, dignity and fairness, then making space for people to create, connect and be seen isn’t optional – it’s part of how we build a healthier, more hopeful society.

Andy Burnham is mayor of Greater Manchester

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