Social prescribing
Social prescribing occurs when health professionals or link workers refer patients for support in the community, enabling them to make their own health choices and develop skills to improve their personal health and well being.
GPs, nurses and other members of the primary care team are able to refer people to a range of local, non-clinical services often provided by the voluntary sector. It can help individuals to experience a better quality of life, improved mental and emotional wellbeing, and lower levels of depression and anxiety.
The RCN General Practice Nursing Forum has developed these pages to raise awareness of the benefits of social prescribing. They provide a range of resources, links and guidelines for the successful introduction of social prescribing in a variety of settings. See: Social prescribing in action - evidence from a nurse-led project.
The RCN Congress fringe event on social prescribing was live streamed. You can watch a recording of the launch event. If you haven't done so already, you will need to register for a free RCNevents.tv account to access this. See: Nurse-led social prescribing: Does it work?
Find out more about social prescribing...
These pages highlight different models and approaches to social prescribing.
General Practice Nursing Forum
Related news
- IRISS, 22 June 2020. Evaluating social prescribing. This briefing provides a review of the research methods and approaches used to evaluate UK-based social prescribing interventions in recent years
- The Wildlife Trusts & Leeds Beckett University, September 2019. A new report, 'Social return on investment analysis of the health and wellbeing impacts of Wildlife Trust programmes ', reveals that prescribing nature is excellent value for money
- NHS England, 5 September 2019. Social prescribing link worker welcome pack includes useful information to help link workers in primary care networks find out more about their role and what support is available
Joyce Pickering: Social prescribing
Page last updated - 28/03/2023