Health and Social Care Secretary is setting out his
ambition for every patient in the country to have access to
social prescribing schemes on the NHS as readily as they do
medical care.
Social prescribing involves helping patients to improve their
health, wellbeing and social welfare by connecting them to
community services. This can include activities such as art
and singing classes.
The National Academy for Social Prescribing will work to:
- standardise the quality and range of social prescribing
available to patients across the country
- increase awareness of the benefits of social prescribing
by building and promoting the evidence base
- develop and share best practice, as well as looking at
new models and sources for funding
- bring together all partners from health, housing and
local government with arts, culture and sporting
organisations to maximise the role of social prescribing
- focus on developing training and accreditation across
sectors
The indepedent academy will receive £5 million of government
funding and will be led by Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard,
the outgoing Chair of the Royal College of General
Practitioners.
It has been developed in partnership across government, with
Sport England, Arts Council England and a range of voluntary
sector partners.
Alongside the benefits for patients, the National Academy for
Social Prescribing could reduce the burden on the NHS.
Only 60% of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) use social
prescribing for patients with anxiety, mental health problems
and dementia.
In some parts of the country, patients with long-term
conditions who have had access to social prescribing link
workers have said they are less isolated, attended 47% fewer
hospital appointments and made 38% fewer visits to A&E.
The NHS Long Term
Plan includes plans to recruit over 1,000 trained
social prescribing link workers by 2020 to 2021, with the aim
of 900,000 people being referred to social prescribing
schemes by then.
The government’s Loneliness
Strategy committed to every eligible patient in the
country having access to a social prescribing connector
scheme by 2023.
Health and Social Care Secretary said:
This academy is much more important than any one
individual. It’s about all of us in health, arts, culture,
sport, communities coming together around one simple
principle: that prevention is better than cure
Social prescribing is a huge part of this. There are
thousands of people up and down the country right now who
are already benefiting from activities like reading
circles, choir groups and walking football.
The National Academy for Social Prescribing will act as a
catalyst to bring together the excellent work already being
done across the NHS and beyond, building on our NHS Long
Term Plan’s ambition to get over 2.5 million more people
benefitting from personalised care within the next 5 years.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard said:
I’m thrilled to have been appointed as chair of this new
academy. Social prescribing has always been so close to my
heart as a practising GP. It’s what good GPs have always
done in terms of getting the best help and support for our
patients beyond the medicines we also provide them with.
I’m looking forward to starting work with colleagues from
so many sectors to bring social prescribing into the
mainstream, to train and educate social prescribers of the
future and to establish a great evidence base and raise the
profile of this fantastic initiative.
