"Every £1 invested in Breathworks courses produces savings of at least £5.76 in reduced costs to health and other public service needs, employer costs and increased community contributions".

Breathworks was set up in 2001 when Vidyamala Burch ran an advert in the Manchester Evening News for mindfulness classes for people living with chronic pain. The response was overwhelming. In 2003, our two other founders, Sona Fricker and Gary Hennessey joined and Breathworks expanded its mindfulness training to cover illness, long-term health conditions (LTCs) and stress. 

Our founders wanted Breathworks to create social and individual change through the business of mindfulness training, so the organisation was set up as a Social Enterprise (and developed into the Community Interest Company (CIC) it is today) while at the same time ensuring that the mindfulness courses represented value for money and were available to those who needed them with our structured pricing plans and bursaries.

With this in mind, we aim to be rigorous in our approach to the value of our mindfulness training, so a research and evaluation organisation, The Social Value Business, was contracted to independently assess our value and benefits to society.

The Social Value Business, conducted extensive research on Breathworks over several months entailing a detailed data gathering and analysis process. Now, we are absolutely delighted to publish their findings in this Social Value Summary report and to be awarded the Social Value Quality Mark (Level 3).

The Social Value Summary report found that in addition to the immediate benefits of mindfulness to our course participants, for every £1 invested in a Breathworks course there were savings to the public purse of at least £5.76, in reduced costs to health and other public service needs, employer costs and increased community contributions.

Breathworks Mindfulness Social Value Mark Infographic.pdf

Breathworks Mindfulness Social Value Full Report - 2016.pdf

Other findings included:

• Mindfulness for Health Impacts and Outcomes: Reduced distress from pain; reduction in depression; reduced ambulance calls, reduced A & E visits and reduction to GP and Community Nursing Team.

• Mindfulness for Stress Impacts: Reduced absenteeism from work; reduced need to GP appointments and medication to treat stress; reduced need for mental health intervention and reduction in drug and alcohol misuse.

• Over 12 months, Breathworks UK Teachers delivered Mindfulness for Health training to over 800 people and Mindfulness for Stress to over 1000.

• Over 12 months, 50 new practitioners within the UK can now deliver mindfulness training.

Colin Duff, Breathworks' Business and Research Manager, says: "We are so pleased with these results, which not only reinforce that Breathworks is following through on our founder's original aims of social value and change, but through this Social Value Summary report it has been established that for every £1 invested in us a saving of at least £5.76 is made to the public purse".

"This will be of particular interest to public service commissioners, who since the Social Value Act of 2013, are required to consider how social value can be embedded within commissioning of services."

Contact Us

If you are interested in talking to someone further about our social value and how Breathworks Mindfulness could benefit your organisation, please contact Colin at [email protected].

Find out more about workplace mindfulness training