Loneliness, living alone and poor social connections are seriously bad for your health. With two fifths of older people - about 3.9 million in the UK - saying the television is their main source of company we need to help people avoid ill health by making sure that they can enjoy good social connections.
The NHS is overwhelmed and not always the right service to support people, which is where social prescribing comes in. Social Prescribing supports those whose health is being affected by loneliness or other social issues by connecting them with activities and organizations in their own community so that they can enjoy today and feel hopeful about tomorrow. This does not only relate to older people but to everyone over the age of 18 who is considered mildly to moderately frail and/or who is struggling in one way or another to manage some of their social issues. All that is asked is that social prescribing participants are actively willing to engage in self-care/self-help activities. The idea behind it is to help you have more control over 6
your own health and find ways to improve how you feel in a way that suits you. Lincolnshire Community and Voluntary Service is at the frontline of social prescribing in the Boston, South Holland, South Kesteven and East Lindsey areas of Lincolnshire, where we have a growing team of social prescribing link workers who are currently building relationships with GP surgeries to ensure doctors understand the benefits of referring patients to us. Although self referral is an option with social prescribing, some people’s first contact with one of our link workers could be as a referral from your GP if they believe medicine alone may not be the best solution for the issues you are experiencing. At its most basic a social prescription offers the kind of help that doesn’t come in a tube or bottle.
