Social Prescribing: The Missing Link

Article by Dr Marie Anne Essam

Hello BSA Today readers! It’s lovely to be back with you again to keep you up to speed with the progression of the whole-person approach to care we call ’social prescribing‘: the transformative, relational support increasingly available to individuals experiencing significant deficits in the psychosocial aspects of being well.

Social prescribing has existed and operated in many communities for decades. Throughout our history, in various ways, we have been mobilising local solutions and resources to motivate and help individuals and families, building bridges between voluntary organisations and statutory health and social care to address the non-medical needs.

In the last 5 years, however, there has been a steady acceleration towards this approach, as the NHS and the government have appreciated the need for a fresh, personalised approach to healthcare. This shift is accompanied by a new opportunity to improve our communities, to invest in good voluntary sector activities, and promote collaboration and innovation amongst pioneers of health and wellbeing bringing a kaleidoscope of goodness to their neighbourhoods.

The social prescribing link worker is key in connecting people with the help of which they can make the best use, and coaching them from a place of disempowerment and despair to a place of believing better things for their future, and taking steps towards confidence and security.

The government has committed funds to provide an extra 1000 link workers, who are entering primary care network (PCN) teams right now, all over England. They will work closely with the practice teams, and serve the most vulnerable patients. They will be a part of team discussions, helping the teams to think outside of the box for their patients, and understand how the non-medical needs play a huge part in health. The link workers will support those with long-term conditions and disabilities, too, who certainly have medical needs, but for whom a better quality of life is possible if the wider issues are recognised.

The PCN link workers will connect with the social prescribing work going on already in their areas, and will encourage community partnerships. Within the next 4 years, it has been proposed that another 3–4 link workers per PCN will be funded by the government, so that increasingly it is the normal thing to offer people care and support which recognises them as individuals, and that there is the capacity required to give them the time they need to make transformative personal journeys to better and more hope-filled lives.

In many areas, the new link workers are simply slotting into the local social prescribing work, sponsored and trained within established schemes. In other places, the GPs in the PCNs will be reaching out to contribute to the local partnerships around them which will enable everyone to build resource and resilience, and to access the right help at the right time.

NHSE has recruited regional facilitators to assist with education of link workers. Online learning modules and webinars are available to deliver training. Other organisations with experience in social prescribing are also providing training courses and online material. Blue Stream Academy itself is planning to contribute to the understanding and spread of authentic social prescribing with a module for subscribers to be made available in 2020.

To crown all of this, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, kept a promise he made to set up an independent National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP), which was launched in November 2019, and which is chaired by Professor Helen Stokes- Lampard, the outgoing Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

NASP is “dedicated to the advancement of social prescribing through promotion, collaboration and innovation”. They plan to do this by raising awareness, exploring funding for community assets and social prescribing, working across all sectors, building the evidence through research, and promoting accredited education and training. Read more about it on the website (www. socialprescribingacademy.org.uk) and follow their tweets (@NASPTweets): this development marks an acceleration in cross-sector commitment to advance the principles of personalised care, the practice of social prescribing, and the provision of resources to both patients and provider organisations to ensure sustainability.

This is a “health movement”, a “community culture change”. I sincerely hope wherever you are playing a part in the health of people and communities, you will get involved locally, and help carry the message that social prescribing is about a transformative initiative, which, via a trusted and trained social prescribing link worker, offers hope to people who the ’system‘ has let down so far.

The approach builds on strengths, finds solutions, and engenders vision, motivation and staying power in the individuals helped. It has the potential to positively inform the way we all see wellbeing, and to shift resource and opportunity into the communities in which vulnerable people live

Dr Marie Anne Essam is a GP and Social Prescribing Ambassador for the Herts and West Essex STP. If you have any questions or would like to develop social prescribing where you are, please get in touch. (And follow her on Twitter!)