What is it about?
Social prescribing typically involves a health or care professional referring someone to a Social Prescribing Link Worker, who then has a conversation to understand what matters to them. Social Prescribing Link Workers then work with them to connect them to services or activities within the community. There are many local small-scale studies evidencing the benefits of social prescribing and, more recently, larger scale evaluations have brought together evidence across different areas suggesting that social prescribing is able to reach those facing inequalities and can lead to economic benefits to health services as well as social and health related outcomes for individuals.
Featured Image
Photo by Clay Lindner on Unsplash
Why is it important?
There are now around 3,500 Social Prescribing Link Workers employed as part of primary care teams in England. It is important to understand the difference that social prescribing makes, alongside the systems that link workers fit into, and how this contributes to addressing social determinates of health.
Perspectives
While there is a wealth of evidence for social prescribing, studies are often small scale. This editorial was an opportunity to bring together key evidence that has been emerging on a larger scale. More recent evidence has also been able to demonstrate population level outcomes across England and that the scale of social prescribing referrals is much larger than we thought. We know that social prescribing link workers often feel under valued and that their role is not understood so hopefully sharing the evidence of impact more widely can help to address this.
Joelle Bradly
National Academy for Social Prescribing
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Social Prescribing: What It Is and What It Can Do, British Journal of Hospital Medicine, July 2025, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/hmed.2025.0007.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
