Celebrating the world's first social prescribing day.

Abstract

With one in four GP consultations arranged purely for social reasons,1 the medical model falls short of delivering the excellent care that our patients need and that healthcare professionals strive to deliver. Social prescribing (SP) is not an argument against the importance of clinical interventions — it has been developed to complement and work alongside the medical model, to address unmet needs. Moreover, it has the potential to play a key role in tackling the social determinants of health, estimated to account for approximately 80% of the modifiable factors contributing to health outcomes for a population.2 With personalised care highlighted as a top priority within the recently published NHS Long Term Plan ,3 2019 truly is the year of SP. With the addition of 1000 trained link-workers, the NHS has promised to extend the benefits to over 2.5 million patients within the next 5 years.3 In spite …