Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:22 pm on 12 February 2020.
I'd like to thank Jayne Bryant for her question and for her work on the cross-party group on the arts and health. I was a member of that group and I know what important work it does and how important the arts are for health, and I'd be very pleased to come to one of the meetings.
Obviously, one of the challenges to enable arts to happen in social care settings is cost, and I'm very pleased that the Welsh Government is continuing to support Age Cymru's healthy ageing programme. Yesterday I published the loneliness and isolation strategy, which commits the Welsh Government to working with the Arts Council of Wales to continue to raise awareness of the health and well-being benefits of participating in the arts, and this is obviously so important in social care settings. And in addition, the Arts Council of Wales will explore the role that arts on prescription can play, particularly in preventing loneliness and isolation.
And I'd like to finish, really, by saying I'm aware of the role that Jayne Bryant plays in supporting the arts in the community from my visit to Derwen Pobl housing complex, meeting the Reality Theatre yesterday.