Explore Play Wales
Play Wales has begun working with Starlight – the UK charity for play in healthcare – to deliver the Play Well in Wales project. The project, designed to support a strategic approach to play in healthcare settings across Wales, will run over a two-year period. It focuses on embedding the Play well toolkit (developed by NHS England) within two NHS trusts in Wales, alongside providing family support and professional training to strengthen play-based approaches in paediatric care.
The Play well toolkit, published by NHS England and Starlight in 2025, brings together commissioning and service-design guidance, recommended standards and a quality checklist to help services plan, deliver, assess and improve high-quality health play provision for children.
Early work on this new project includes bringing together health play managers and establishing a Play Well in Wales Task Force with key stakeholders working within the children’s health play system in Wales.