How to Get Referred to an Arts Scheme: The Specific Ask That Works

Ask to be put in touch with the social prescribing link worker attached to your practice, by that name. That single sentence is the difference between a referral and a sympathetic conversation, and everything else on this page is detail around it.

I have watched people arrive at the singing groups I run by three quite different routes, and the pattern is consistent enough to be worth writing down. Some come because a link worker rang me. Some come because a relative found the group and drove them. And some come because they asked their GP whether there was anything going on locally, were told there might be something, and heard nothing further. The third route almost never completes. It is not that anybody refused them. It is that a general question about creative activity has no owner in a GP practice, so it does not become anybody’s task, and a question that does not become a task quietly stops existing. The people who got somewhere all asked for a named person or a named organisation.

Where a claim about effect appears below it carries a tier (Tier 1 supported, Tier 2 promising but limited, Tier 3 practice and anecdote), explained on reading arts in health research.

The wording

Short, specific, and naming a role rather than describing a wish.

Please can you put me in touch with the social prescribing link worker attached to this practice.

Say it to a receptionist, a practice nurse, a GP, a pharmacist or anybody else in the building, because in most practices the answer is administrative rather than clinical. If you are asked why, one sentence is plenty: something in your situation that a prescription will not fix, and an interest in a group or an activity. You do not need to make a case, quote a study or justify the request. If you are writing rather than speaking, the same sentence works in an online consultation form, and a written request has the advantage of leaving a record.

Two variants worth having ready. If the person you are speaking to does not recognise the term, try: the person who connects patients with community activities and support, sometimes called a wellbeing coordinator or a community connector, because the job title varies by area. And if you want to skip the practice entirely: many services accept self referral, so ringing and asking for the link worker’s own contact details is legitimate and often faster.

The role itself, what it covers and what it does not, is described by the national body for social prescribing¹, and set out at more length on social prescribing explained.

Why the vague version fails

Because there is no owner for it.

A general enquiry about whether anything creative is available lands on somebody who does not hold that information, in a ten minute appointment already committed to something else. The honest answer available to them is a maybe, and a maybe generates no follow up. Nobody has behaved badly and nothing has been recorded, so there is nothing to chase.

Naming the link worker converts the same request into a task with a completion state: pass on a name, or forward a message. That is why it works, and it is the same reason that asking for a named organisation works when you ring around directly.

The corollary is that persistence is reasonable and should not feel rude. If a fortnight passes with nothing, ring back and ask whether the message reached the link worker. That is not chasing a favour; it is chasing an administrative step.

What to ask once you have the conversation

Four questions, and the third one is the one people forget.

What is running now, rather than what is listed? Directories go out of date quickly in this sector, and the link worker will know which entries are still real.

When does the next block start? Courses generally run in fixed intakes of 8 to 10 weeks rather than admitting people continuously, which is what the 2024 systematic review found across its 25 included programmes². So the wait is usually for a start date rather than for paperwork, and knowing the date is more useful than knowing the wait.

How long is the scheme funded for? This determines whether the group you join will still exist in a year, and it is the single most common disappointment in this sector. Ask it early rather than after you have grown attached to a Tuesday.

What happens at the end of the course? Some schemes have a plan for what people move on to and some do not. The ones that do are noticeably better at the thing they are actually good at, which is connecting somebody to something ongoing.

If the honest answer is that there is nothing

That is a real answer and it happens, particularly outside cities, and particularly where a grant has recently ended.

A link worker cannot create provision. What they can sometimes do is point sideways, and it is worth asking explicitly about each of these:

• A neighbouring area’s scheme. Boundaries are administrative, and some schemes take people from outside their patch if there is a place.
• A condition specific charity. Local branches often run something or know who does, and they usually know whether it is any good.
• A community dance or music organisation. These are the actual providers of a great deal of this work even where the class is advertised by somebody else. Finding a dance for health class covers how to approach them.
• An arts venue or leisure centre participation programme. Theatres, arts centres and council facilities host more of this than people expect.
• An ordinary class you pay for. No referral, no eligibility criteria, no funding cliff. If money allows, this is frequently the most durable option, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than treating the referred route as the only legitimate one.

The sector’s own reports and case studies are collected in one place³, which is useful for seeing what kinds of scheme exist, and is worth reading as a description of practice rather than as evidence that any of it works.

The different request: a registered arts therapy

If what you want is therapy rather than an activity, social prescribing is the wrong door and the ask changes completely.

Music therapy, art therapy, art psychotherapy and dramatherapy are clinical interventions delivered by practitioners holding titles protected in UK law. In July 2026 the Health and Care Professions Council register listed 6,103 arts therapists across those four titles⁴. A link worker cannot arrange any of them.

The routes are a clinical referral within a service that employs an arts therapist, provision through a school or a charity, or private practice. For private work, the professional bodies list members available for private practice, and the British Association for Music Therapy publishes a recommended fee floor of from £52.00 upwards for individual music therapy⁵, which is a floor rather than an average. Dance movement psychotherapist is not a protected title, and the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK runs its own accredited register instead⁶.

The practical detail is on how to find a music therapist, art therapy and dance movement psychotherapy. The distinction between the two halves of this field, and why a claim proved about one does not transfer to the other, is on music therapy against community music and art therapy against an art class.

Do not lead with the evidence

Two reasons, one tactical and one about honesty.

Tactically, a request framed as a preference is easier to grant than a request framed as an argument. Nobody in a GP practice needs to adjudicate a literature in order to give you a phone number, and turning the exchange into a debate gives them a reason to hesitate.

Honestly, the evidence will not carry the weight anyway. The 2024 systematic review screened 7,805 records, included 25 studies, and found no randomised controlled trials at all: 10 qualitative, 7 mixed methods and 8 quantitative studies using uncontrolled before and after designs. Its pooled result on wellbeing was statistically significant and rests entirely on those uncontrolled designs². That is Tier 3 on this site, and the economic figures in circulation are weaker still, as does arts on prescription save money sets out in full.

Tier 3 does not mean it does not work. It means the question is open, and you are entitled to want a place on a creative course without anybody having proved anything, in the same way that you are entitled to join a choir. Wanting it is a sufficient reason.

After the referral

Two things worth knowing before the first session.

You will probably be asked to fill in a wellbeing questionnaire at the start and again at the end. That is the scheme’s evaluation, it is usually a condition of its funding, and it is optional in the sense that you can decline, though most people do it. It is also, as it happens, the design that cannot prove anything, which is not the scheme’s fault.

And you are allowed to leave. A place on a course is not a commitment you owe anybody, and a group that is not right for you is not a failure on your part. Say so to the person running it if you can, because a scheme that knows why people leave runs better next time. What a ten week arts course involves sets out the shape of one so that the first week is less of an unknown, and arts on prescription covers what the term means and what it does not.

If your health changes, or if the reason you were referred gets worse, that belongs with your GP or your clinical team rather than with a course leader. Nothing on this page is a reason to change, delay or decline any part of anybody’s treatment, and no arts scheme substitutes for one.