Reading Well, led by The Reading Agency, provides millions of people with trusted, evidence-based books to help manage their mental and physical health. In this case study, learn more about how the programme is changing lives through reading, as well as keeping health experts and people with lived experience at its core.
About The Reading Agency
National Portfolio Organisation The Reading Agency is on a mission to empower people of all ages to read. Working with public libraries, prisons, hospitals, community settings and commercial partners like publishers and the BBC, they reach over two million people a year.
Reading Well programme
Since 2013, The Reading Agency’s Reading Well programme has been providing books, just like prescriptions, to help people better understand and manage their health and wellbeing.
Developed by The Reading Agency with Libraries Connected and public libraries, Reading Well provides trusted reading materials recommended by health experts and people with lived experience of the conditions and challenges covered. Books can be recommended by a health professional, or anyone can visit their local library and take a book out themselves.
Catering to a wide range of people, there are currently four Reading Well schemes: Reading Well for mental health, Reading Well for teens, Reading Well for children and Reading Well for dementia. Each Reading Well scheme is developed with an evidence-based approach from start to finish. All the books are mapped against National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, as well as relevant policies and research. The programme also keeps people with lived experience at its heart, including them on book selection panels for each scheme alongside health experts. Together they share insights, expertise and knowledge to review and choose the books. The final booklist is then endorsed by professional health bodies and partners including NHS England, Royal College of General Practitioners, Royal College of Psychiatrists, The British Psychological Society and leading health charities. Finally, once the titles are chosen, The Reading Agency collaborates with a range of publishers to promote the programme.
As a result, the Reading Well programme has become a trusted resource for health professionals and the public. It offers free, reliable, and evidence-based materials through public libraries, helping people access support while waiting for treatment or outside of clinical settings. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport has also funded a universal roll-out of The Reading Agency’s list of books to support mental health to every library service across England, meaning more people can access health and wellbeing support.
Impact
The Reading Agency makes a real difference, inspiring over 139,000 children and families to join their local libraries through their programmes. The public have also been able to access more than 15.5 million books, eBooks and audiobooks since 2013 thanks to The Reading Agency’s initiatives.
Their work also highlights how effective reading can be for supporting health and wellbeing. Since 2013, public libraries have issued over 3.8 million Reading Well books. An impressive 92% of the adults surveyed said their Reading Well book was helpful for managing their health and wellbeing, and 90% of health professionals reported that the books supported people with their health and wellbeing outside of consultation time.
Publisher engagement
As part of the wider Reading Well activation programme, funded by a £600,000 National Lottery Project Grant from the Arts Council, The Reading Agency are working with publishers to share valuable consumer insights from 10 years of the programme’s delivery. This approach helps The Reading Agency create authentic content, test new ways of developing materials based on what users need, and explore new ways of shaping published work.
You can find out more about Reading Well, including links to reading lists and resources on The Reading Agency’s website.
Angela Rippon CBE, journalist and broadcaster and Reading Well for dementia champion said: “I’ve become very involved in the world of dementia awareness after caring for my late mother who had the disease. I’m delighted The Reading Agency has developed this book collection to encourage people to read about dementia. When my mother developed dementia 20 years ago, I knew very little about it. I needed a great deal of help to learn how to cope and to help my mother live well with the disease. I believe Reading Well for dementia will be a step forward. The books are going to be the catalyst that will bring people together, inform them and educate them to become much more aware and most importantly, less frightened of what a future with dementia holds.”
https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/blog/reading-well-supporting-health-and-wellbeing-through-reading