15 Years supporting recovery and wellbeing through music
Music and Health Programme
“Wherever we are from, whatever language we speak, music connects us – unites us.”
– March 2021 Life Room sharing event
Liverpool Philharmonic’s Music and Health programme began in partnership with Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust in 2008. Initially, the programme was a pilot working across two Mental Health wards but has now grown to work with the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre Foundation Trust, Improving Me and the Walton Centre.
We work in community settings and have a growing social prescribing programme, welcoming referrals from GPs, Link Workers and mental health charities. We are now one of the longest continuously running Music and Health programmes working in collaborative partnership with the NHS and have worked with over 18,000 individuals, using music to improve the health of people across the Liverpool City region
This year we are celebrating the 15th anniversary of the programme. Between 9 – 20 October, we will host special performances in hospitals, care and community settings for family- across our four partner NHS Trusts. As part of this series of events, participants have been working with musicians from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to create a showcase performance which aims to demonstrate the profound mental and physical impacts of collaborative music-making. Central to the programme are the people and communities we work with, our NHS colleagues and the world-famous musicians from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Through working together over the last 15 years, we have developed a programme which uses music to support, connect and benefit the health and wellbeing of individuals and families across the Liverpool City Region.
Our Music and Health programme creates pathways and progression routes including independent visits to Liverpool Philharmonic and sign-posting to other activities. We deliver a range of activities within community settings, including Mersey Care’s Life Rooms facilities. Our social prescribing programme, Music Mondays, is open for referrals for individuals aged 18+ from across the Liverpool City Region.
The programme helps develop confidence, skills and hope for the future, and reduces isolation and exclusion of often highly marginalised individuals at very challenging times in their lives.
To mark the 15th anniversary, Liverpool Philharmonic and the University of Liverpool have published a report to present the significant findings regarding music improving the general health and wellbeing of individuals' in receiving care in hospitals and in the community. The report is drawn from 2022/23 studies by the University of Liverpool’s Professor Josie Billington PhD, Dr Jaqueline Waldock PhD and Dr Melissa Chapple PhD, consultation with Royal College of Music Professor Rosie Perkins FHEA, FRSPH, HonRCM, and research by University of Sunderland visiting Professor Susanne Burns.
Previous reporting on the Music and Health programme from 2008-2017 can also be found here:
For further information contact learning@liverpoolphil.com
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Testimonials from participants
"During the long process of recovery, the music sessions have helped me as some kind of anchor I can hold on to."
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Testimonials from staff
"There are methods other than medication, to help people living with mental health problems. We know the music programme is working, the service users tell us it’s working and it’s making a difference. People with poor mental health lose their social networks and through creative projects we can help them recreate these and build new ones as part of their recovery. Being socially active and culturally engaged creates new lease of life." – Mersey Care Manager
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Testimonials from musicians
"One of the most memorable sessions I have had, was with someone who had been in and out of services for 40 years. I had gone to the session with another member of the orchestra and we ended-up playing a Beatles song. This gentleman decided to join in and sing with us. He began to cry and get quite emotional, it turns out the song had been played at his mother’s funeral but his emotions had never come out. He had been planning to leave the centre that day, but after that he stayed on. He said that it had helped overcome the tension inside him. He has now been ‘clean’ for three years and credits it to what happened that day." – Lead Musician
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