Celebrating Social Prescribing day: Reflecting on a year of local, national and international collaborations

The 19 March has been designated as Social Prescribing Day. It is an opportunity to share experiences and raise awareness of social prescribing. Through social prescribing, people are connected to ‘community assets’ – groups, organisations, clubs, charities – that can help to address ‘non-medical’ issues affecting their health and well-being (e.g. loneliness, fuel poverty, lacking purpose in life). Link workers are employed to undertake this connecting role; acting as a bridge between individuals with non-medical issues and community assets. They help people to develop an action plan and well-being goals, and then link them to appropriate community assets.

Oxford Social Prescribing Research Network (OXSOP)

We have been privileged again this year to continue connecting with a range of people working in or receiving support via social prescribing. This is through the work we have been undertaking as part of the Oxford Social Prescribing Research Network (OXSOP). This network has 250 members from across the United Kingdom, and also includes individuals from outside this country (e.g. America, Australia, Germany). We meet online approximately five times a year to share innovations and to discuss findings from research.

Since the last Social Prescribing Day in 2024, members of OXSOP have engaged in several local, national and international events and projects. We provide an overview below (this is a summary and does not include all aspects of our work, which can be found on our website).

Local

• Presenting at the Marmalade Festival, which brings people together in Oxford to discuss local and global issues. This involved talking about research on the cultural sector and its role in social prescribing.
• Receiving funding to undertake research on green social prescribing to support mothers experiencing multiple long-term conditions. This is being led by Marta Santillo.

 National

• Researching the role of the cultural sector in supporting the health and well-being of older people from global majority backgrounds. Researchers Debra Westlake and Jordan Gorenberg have been central in the data collection and analysis for this project. In addition,  Geoff Wong has played a key role in guiding the development of a programme theory in this realist evaluation. We have also worked closely with Will Long from the Old Fire Station in Oxford, as part of the data collection involves ‘Storytelling’; Will has trained us in using this approach to understanding lived experiences and interpretating data in a collborative way with older people, cultural providers, and those running or funding social prescribing services.
• Running a knowledge exchange event with key decision-makers about the implementation of link workers in primary care. The event focused on a report we published on this topic. At the meeting, we shared a video we produced, based on interviews with 61 patients from different parts of England, who talked about their experiences of social prescribing.
• Completing a study on the retention of link workers in their job. This included producing a gallery of photos from link workers involved in the research that reflected: a) a typical part of their working day; b) something that gave them confidence in their role; c) an unexpected part of their job.
• Exploring the delivering of social prescribing and networks that link workers establish in more deprived parts of the country; this is for a DPhil being undertaken by Amadea Turk, which is due for submission this year. A qualitative systematic review has already been published from this research and further papers will be produced later this year.

International

• Being part of a European project that involves a randomised controlled trial of social prescribing across different countries, and a qualitative comparative study.
• Presenting at a Canadian social prescribing conference in Toronto.

We look forward to on-going work in this field and to continuing developing connections with collaborators in the United Kingdom and beyond. If you are interested in being part of OXSOP, please go to this link to send an email explaining why you are interested in joining.

Stephanie Tierney is an Associate Professor and Kamal Mahtani is a Professor, both based at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford.