Social prescribing for and beyond health: hyper-solutionism in health policy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social prescribing is a primary care approach that enables healthcare professionals to refer patients to social activities and services. While social prescribing has gained currency across the Global North, there has been little critical engagement with this health policy from a social science perspective. In this article, drawing on the case of Austria as an example, I present the results of a discourse analysis on social prescribing and show how in related policy documents social prescribing is constructed as a solution for multiple problems: Social prescribing is presented as a solution for addressing the social determinants of health and as a fix for the overburdening of the healthcare system. At the same time, through supposedly fostering social inclusion and cohesion, social prescribing is also portrayed as ‘improving’ society more generally. I argue that the depiction of social prescribing as – what I call – a hyper-solution is connected to the pervasive logic of austerity and resource efficiency in the governance of health and healthcare, as social prescribing redefines and expands the notion of what constitutes a healthcare resource, who is responsible for health but also the domain that healthcare is responsible for.