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Social prescribing link workers can help reduce health inequalities

GPs had always ‘operated outside the biomedical model’, which is what separated them from specialist colleagues. However general practice had not always had the resources or skills to operate in the ‘psycho-social space’ until the introduction of social prescribing link workers says Martin Marshall RCGP Chair.

Health care is holistic. It is not about responding to ill health but instead addressing and preventing drivers like social injustice and health inequalities. The personalised care approach empowers and enables people to take control of their health and wellbeing which improves health outcomes. However, despite the increase in the use of personalised care, its growth is uneven across England and population groups.

Social prescribing link workers play a critical role in helping to reduce inequalities.
Any health care system that genuinely wants to reduce inequalities has to work with social prescribing link workers (SPLWs) to proactively work with people. By its very nature, social prescribing is a mechanism meant to empower and enable. The main driver of the SPLW model is the acknowledgment that the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities are often dictated by a range of environmental and socio-economic factors. Social determinants of health account for approximately 80% of all health outcomes. Social prescribing is all about holistic wellbeing and placing control of health with individuals, so they can save themselves.

How social prescribing can help GPs and practice teams
A telephonic intervention made by an SPLW identified barriers to attending smear tests and markedly increased the uptake of cervical smears in a group of women over 40 at a practice in Wirral.

SPLWs enable general practice and teams to offer holistic service to empower individuals and communities to help themselves. It also helps to bring general practice much closer to the community, highlighting that the GP is the glue that connects other services, rather than being the focal point where patients are over-reliant on their GP.

Increase recruitment and utilisation of SPLWs
The way that health care systems do this is by increasing resources and expanding the rollout to expand the number of SPLWs. Providing an exponential return, SPLWs are a valuable resource that can help increase an already strained NHS’s capacity. Working alongside primary care and community services, SPLWs play a pivotal role.

Ensuring that SPLWs are meaningfully embedded within primary care opens new opportunities for public health and healthcare to become more person and community-centered to meet the needs of local people.

Revolutionizing the future
With an ever-increasing evidence base for the success of social prescribing and its impact on reducing social inequality, more and more primary care networks, GPs and integrated care systems are embracing social prescribing and committing resources to it.

Empowering our SPLWs and leveraging their engagement in and understanding of communities to help identify gaps in services and need, can inform local planning and knowledge of key issues. In many ways, SPLWs are the eyes and ears of their communities, ensuring no one is left behind. By identifying and removing key barriers to health, social prescribing addresses issues of social justice and health inequalities. As flexible, mobile individuals working closely with their respective communities, SPLWs can empower people to tackle social determinants of health that the NHS cannot traditionally reach.

Christiana Melam is the Chief Executive of The National Association of Link Workers (NALW) , you can follow her on twitter @christy_melam

The National Association of Link Workers (NALW) is the only national professional body for link workers in the UK. As the largest UK professional membership body for Social Prescribing Link Workers, NALW plays a vital role in developing and supporting professional industry standards (including Continuing Professional Development) as well as a clear code of practice that underpins this vital workforce. NALW is a vibrant independent grassroots social innovation that serves to increase resilience, professionalism, and connectedness amongst Social Prescribing Link Workers & organisations.

Last Updated on 31 January 2022