Playlist for Life’s mission upon its founding in 2013 was to ensure everyone living with dementia had access to a personal playlist and that the people who love and care for them to know how to use it.
In 2025, with thanks to our supporters, community partners and trained professionals, we are extremely proud to have done so much to bring personal playlists to people living with dementia, their carers and families.
From expanding community partnerships, to training health and social care professionals across a range of settings, to taking the case for playlists in dementia care to key leaders and decision makers, here’s a look back on what Playlist for Life achieved in 2025.
We took playlists to Parliament
The case for playlists in dementia care made waves across government as our policy team hosted events at Westminster and The Scottish Parliament to demonstrate the powerful impact meaningful music has had for people living with dementia. Across three events that included a parliamentary exhibition, drop-in, and a parliamentary reception we shared the power of playlists with leaders and decision makers and were supported by our lived experience and celebrity ambassadors who testified in favour of the therapeutic impact music can have on people’s lives. Watch the highlights here.
Led National Playlist Day for the fourth year running
Our annual awareness-raising campaign reached new heights thanks to an overwhelming amount of support from our ambassadors, partners and volunteers.
National Playlist Day encourages people to think about the songs that would feature on the soundtrack of their lives and to use them to create a personal playlist to improve their wellbeing now and offer a potential lifeline for the future.
National Playlist Day relayed our message to millions nationwide through a mix of community events, social media partnerships and most notably through our ambassador Sir Alex Ferguson who appeared on BBC Breakfast where he met with couple Ken and Mil. This heartwarming interview showed the power of personally meaningful music in action.
Thank you to Ken and Mill for sharing your story and thank you to Sir Alex Ferguson for amplifying this story.
Watch the BBC interview with Ken and Mil here.
Attracted new ambassadors and partnerships
We are always working to reach and support more people who can benefit from the power of music, so we were thrilled to have the generous support of new ambassadors including football legend Sir Alex Ferguson, Scottish music greats The Bluebells and Miss Scotland finalist and medical student Abigail Thompson.
We continued to be supported by lived experience ambassadors sharing their experience and advice to inspire and encourage families across the country to get started on their own personalised playlist.
We expanded our reach in the community
72 new community partners joined our UK wide Help Point network of organisations sharing the power of playlists within in their communities.
New partners include groups sharing our resources in multiple languages to support more people in the South Asian community such as Tarang Art & Wellbeing Association of Scotland (TAWAS) raising community awareness of the power of music, Hospital Radio Lynn creating shared community playlists and organisations providing vital support to their local community such as Dementia Heroes.
We celebrated the network with a visit to the first Help Point that joined our network, The Dementia Hub at St Andrews Carluke to create a video highlighting its impact from the people who use it.
We spread the knowledge and skills to embed playlist in dementia care through our tried and tested training.
We provided specialised training to health and social care professionals and students from a wide range of settings across the UK including Community Mental Health Teams, hospital wards, hospices and more.
Hallmark Luxury Care Homes pledged to make personal playlists available across all of its 22 homes and to each resident living with dementia. So far the team has seen significant benefits in the use of personal playlists for residents affected by dementia.
We raised vital funds to help us continue supporting people who need it
Thanks to the many generous individuals who donated to the charity this year. Thank you to those that gave up their time and put in the effort to raise funds through events and activities, from walking The KiltWalk to running races and hosting concerts.
Thanks to Niall Gibson and friends who kicked off a year of running supporters by taking part in a Men’s 10k in memory of his dad who lived with dementia.
Community partners The Westerton Male Voice Choir and Southside Strummers raised funds through concerts and pop up events throughout the year.
Our corporate partner Turcan Connell have gone over and above this year to raise funds through bake sales, running events and hosting a fundraising Hockey Tournament.
Another corporate supporter Maven Capital Partners have been raising awareness and funds through taking part in running events.
Our impact was recognised in a string of award wins
We were thrilled to see our work in transforming dementia care acknowledged by a series of awards.
We won the ScottishPower Foundation award for Community Engagement and were runner up for the Innovation Award for our partnership work with community organisations and nationwide campaigns to raise awareness of the power of music.
We won the Glasgow Inspiring City Community Impact Award recognising the work of our grassroots community organisations to improve wellbeing through playlists for people affected by dementia.
In partnership with Imaginary Friends we received a Gold award at the Scottish Design Awards for their fantastic work on our National Playlist Day campaign.
Thank you to everyone — volunteers, partners, supporters, and communities — who helped us spread the word and make a difference this year.
Could you continue to help us improve the lives of more people living with dementia? Visit our homepage to learn how to create your own playlist, access our free resources, or support our work.
