Social prescribing

Social prescribing facilitates patients with a range of social, psychological and physical problems to access a wide range of local interventions and services provided by the voluntary and volunteer sectors and others.[1] Sadiq Khan advocates it as a way of reducing health inequalities in London and reducing demand on General Practice. It is estimated that about 20% of patient consultations are for social rather than medical problems.[2]

What is it?

Social prescribing is about doctors referring some of their patients to a social prescribing specialist who can provide "prescriptions" for things other than drugs and medical treatment, such as activities with local volunteer groups. It is suggested that volunteering and connection to the community are good for individual's health and could potentially lead to big cost savings for the health service.

According to the UK's "National Social Prescribing Network" Social prescribing "enables healthcare professionals to refer patients to a link worker, to co-design a non-clinical social prescription to improve their health and well-being".[3]

Evaluation

A recent independent evaluation showed significant qualitative benefits[4] in line with other studies that are indicative of cost saving potential.[5]

Examples

In the London borough of Hackney a social-prescribing scheme is in place, in part due to a vibrant voluntary sector in Hackney and lots of very proactive G.P.s. Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) tend to follow clinicians lead, and so initiatives coming from doctors can make all the difference. Hackney CCG ran a tendering process for setting up social prescribing and got a service provider to implement it for them.

Resources

Healthy London Partnership has produced a report intended to help CCG commissioners make decisions about implementing social prescribing[6] and are also hosting a wiki specifically on Social Prescribing and Self Care.[7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ OPM group social prescribing http://www.opm.co.uk/blog/social-prescribing-offers-a-model-to-prevent-ill-health-but-shared-decision-making-could-be-the-mechanism-that-makes-it-happen/#
  2. ↑ "Plan to expand social prescribing in bid to tackle health inequalities". GP Online. 24 August 2017. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  3. ↑ What is Social Prescribing? https://www.westminster.ac.uk/patient-outcomes-in-health-research-group/projects/social-prescribing-network
  4. ↑ Social Prescribing: integrating GP and community health assets http://www.health.org.uk/programmes/shine-2014/projects/social-prescribing-integrating-gp-and-community-health-assets
  5. ↑ http://info.wirral.nhs.uk/document_uploads/evidence-reviews/Social%20Prescribing%20literature%20review%20v5.pdf
  6. ↑ Steps towards implementing self-care https://www.healthylondon.org/latest/publications/steps-towards-implementing-self-care
  7. ↑ Social Prescribing and Self Care wiki
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