CYP Now – Expanding play therapy services in healthcare

Each year, there are nearly 1.8 million child hospital admissions in the UK, and yet nearly three-quarters (71%) of NHS trusts and health boards do not have an allocated budget to fund health play services for children.

In 2024, the services of one national charity championing children’s play in healthcare – Starlight Children’s Foundation – were accessed more than 2 million times by children and young people across the UK.

What’s more, the business case to support the expansion of play services across the health service is increasingly compelling, with independent research showing that the charity saves the NHS £2.2m each year in staff days worked.

From finger painting and making balloon animals to console gaming and specialist VR headsets, the charity gives children of all ages the opportunity to play in a way that comes most naturally to them. It also supports healthcare professionals working to mitigate children’s risk of trauma from difficult or painful procedures.

Despite having a footprint in over 600 hospitals and hospices across the UK, access to this support is not yet universal – something that the charity and the NHS is keen to change.

A report co-authored by the charity and NHS England – A Common Purpose – was published in 2023 and lays out a series of ambitions to develop play therapy services across the country. Accelerating the skills development of the play therapy workforce was identified as central to an expansion of these services, and not-for-profit organisation Skills for Health has been working with the charity to put in place a national workforce development strategy to achieve it.

One of the main challenges we encountered as part of the workforce planning process is the relative newness of the profession.

Unlike doctors or nurses, professions that have been around for centuries, health play specialists and hospital playworkers are a relatively new phenomenon. Whereas the route to becoming a doctor or a nurse for example is fairly well established, the same cannot necessarily be said about play therapy. The more effective career entry routes in healthcare tend to be the ones that promote diversity. That is to say that they cater for different types of learners, both academic and vocational, and in doing so cast the net as wide as possible in terms of recruiting talent.

Awareness and aspiration have an equal part of play in the advancement of careers in play therapy, as well as helping to establish the role as part of the wider clinical and non-clinical Multidisciplinary Team (MDT).

Cementing play therapy in the public imagination as a career that people can aspire to – where they can find their calling and think “I can make a difference” is vital. Resources also need to be put in place to support opportunities for specialisation and progression long-term.

Again, taking doctors and nurses as our example – vocational and educational pathways in these fields are both rewarding and wide-ranging. Upon qualification, doctors are registered with their relevant royal college (GPs, emergency medicine, for example), which supports development and progression throughout their careers. In nursing, the range of roles and specialisation to aspire to is vast and growing. There is still work to be done to develop the resources that support career progression in play therapy, but this is something that is evolving.

Any parent will tell you that seeing their child suffer in hospital is their own worst nightmare. Being able to bring that sense of normality and joy, if even for the briefest of moments, to reduce the trauma of medical care is not only proven to be beneficial to long-term health outcomes, but also a moral obligation in my view.

That being so, I think most of us would agree that the services Starlight provides are essential. Positively, this is a view that is recognised in the health sector and is now being backed by the service standards, NHS commissioning guidance and a workforce strategy. All of these developments can only be a good thing for the health and wellbeing of children and young people across the UK.