{"id":293294,"date":"2026-02-20T10:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T10:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/293294\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T10:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T10:38:12","slug":"the-nhs-trial-turning-patients-into-stand-ups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/293294\/","title":{"rendered":"the NHS trial turning patients into stand-ups"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a quiet room in central London, a circle of women clutch small notepads as they are helped to turn some of the hardest moments of their lives into stand-up comedy.<\/p>\n

The group comes from very different walks of life, ranging from the homeless, working professionals, those recovering from addiction and others who are just lonely or out of work. <\/p>\n

At The Passage, a day centre for homeless people in Westminster, Carly Smallman, an award-winning comedian, guides the women as they create comic material that they will have the option to perform in public at the Royal Albert Hall next month.<\/p>\n

They are all taking part in a six-week \u201cComedy-on-Prescription\u201d trial, which is designed to build the evidence base needed to show that prescribing stand-up lessons for patients with mild or moderate depression can be used as a complement or alternative to medication. <\/p>\n

The goal is to enable comedy and laughter-based workshops to be recognised within the NHS as a \u201csafe healthcare intervention\u201d by the end of the year, said\u00a0Louisa Jackson, the founder and CEO of Craic Health, the organisation behind the initiative, which is currently running pilot trials in Westminster.<\/p>\n

\"LouisaLouisa Jackson, founder and CEO of Craic Health \u00a9 Anna Gordon\/FT<\/p>\n

GPs and nurses working inside the NHS already use social prescribing to help people with loneliness and mental health challenges by connecting them with local gardening or art groups in response to long waiting lists for talking therapies and concerns about overprescribing antidepressants.<\/p>\n

The model forms a key part of the government\u2019s 10-year NHS plan to\u00a0reform the struggling service, which aims to shift more care into the community and reduce pressure on overstretched GPs and hospitals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been integrating arts, museums and gardens into prescription services for years,\u201d noted Jackson. <\/p>\n

\u201cComedy is the last major creative industry that hasn\u2019t been integrated, but there is already a huge amount of global research on laughter. That gives us an opportunity to expedite integration into NHS policy \u2014 but we still have to prove it works,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

\"Carly\u2018We build different stand-up skills each week\u2019: Comedian Carly Smallman, left, leads a workshop \u00a9 Anna Gordon\/FT<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a comedian for a long time, and I found that stand-up has really helped my mental health,\u201d said Smallman. \u201cBefore I did comedy, I used to have panic attacks all the time. Since I started performing, they\u2019ve really eased up. I thought to myself, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a coincidence. So what I\u2019m trying to do is pass that on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is that we build different stand-up skills each week so they have at least one to two minutes they could perform on stage if they want to,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

Among the sketches performed is one of a woman who loves to complain and gives herself the nickname \u201cPablo Escalate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tracey, 42, recounted how, as a homeless woman, she would innocently ask strangers for the time, only to encounter irritation because they thought she was asking for spare change. Her comic timing is impeccable, drawing laughter from the room, but beneath the humour lies a sobering reflection on how society treats the homeless.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy key worker thought these workshops would be good for me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been brilliant and a good group of people as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TwoGroup attendees work on a comedy routine \u00a9 Anna Gordon\/FT<\/p>\n

For Opal, one of the group attendees, these workshops offer something different from more traditional routes for tackling mental health issues. \u201cMedication can help, but this is a natural way \u2014 laughter increases serotonin, those happy hormones. There are no side effects to laughing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that it was \u201cempowering\u201d to put herself out there and believes comedy can also open up difficult conversations as \u201can amazing tool to talk about things people don\u2019t want to talk about.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dr Simon Opher, a former GP and Labour MP for Stroud, said the use of comedy workshops like these offered an \u201calternative route that can help to de-medicalise mild to moderate symptoms.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there is too much prescribing going on but often that\u2019s because there just aren\u2019t these alternatives to point people towards\u201d, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s never going to be for the most seriously unwell, but we know laughter really can make us all feel better.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"VivianVivian says she was drawn to the group by a desire to connect with others \u00a9 Anna Gordon\/FT<\/p>\n

Participants fill in a survey adapted from the\u00a0Warwick\u2011Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale,\u00a0which asks about optimism, relationships and coping with problems. Before and after each session, they write one word describing how they feel.<\/p>\n

\u201cA GP isn\u2019t going to stop prescribing antidepressants and tell someone to go to their local workshop instead,\u201d noted Jackson. \u201cBut for many people, connection is what they\u2019re missing. There will always be cases where social prescribing, including comedy, isn\u2019t appropriate. That\u2019s why we do careful check-ins and train providers to spot trauma responses and safeguarding issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vivian, 82, said she was drawn to the event by a desire for connection after losing her husband and a number of close friends. \u201cIt\u2019s true that in life tragedy and comedy can be so close,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Comedy, she added, has always been her release. \u201cBilly Connolly nearly kills me laughing. I laugh so much my stomach really hurts. I feel like I might die laughing.\u201d After a pause, she added: \u201cTo die from laughter? Well, what a lovely way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a quiet room in central London, a circle of women clutch small notepads as they are helped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-293294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}