Location: United Kingdom
Every so often, a news story along the lines of “Doctors to prescribe going to a cafe to combat depression” will come up in the news. And when it does, people will begin to ask questions like “does this really help mental health?”
The answer is yes - prescriptions like these are known as ‘social prescribing,’ and it’s one of the most interesting developments in the way we prevent, support, and treat mental health problems.
In this blog to celebrate Social Prescribing Day, we’re going to explain a little bit more about what social prescribing is, and share three examples of social prescriptions that you might find interesting.
How social prescribing helps people
Social Prescribing is a name for a family of non-medical solutions that a patient may have recommended to them when they’re experiencing a health problem. Quite a lot of things that affect our health, like loneliness, isolation or stress due to problems with debt or housing, cannot be treated by doctors or medicine alone - and this is where social prescribing can step in.
While Doctors do very occasionally make socially prescriptions themselves, usually, social prescribing will involve a GP referring someone to a link worker. Link workers are non-medical staff who are given the time to discuss a patients’ situation with them, so they can get a better understanding of what works for a particular patient, and help them create an action plan. This action plan usually involves that person being referred to community-based support - like debt advice, creative outlets or even training & employment support.
Social prescribing aims to improve people’s health through these activities and the social connections the facilitate. It’s an approach rooted in the same ideas as prevention – by supporting people with their social, economic, and environmental problem, you can help relieve the health problems that are driven by these. For example, if someone’s struggling with their mental health, and they tell their link worker they spend a lot of time alone at home, the link worker may introduce them to a walking group to help them access nature and make connections.
These interventions can be really beneficial – especially for people who may be struggling with loneliness, or complex social needs that they need support with.
So what does it look like in practice? Here are some examples of social prescribing projects – historical and present day - you might find interesting.
The Peckham Experiment
Social Prescribing has its roots in 1920s Britain, with a project known as the Peckham Experiment, which ran from 1920 to 1950.
Drs George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse set up a community hub known as the Pioneer Centre on St Mary’s Road in South London, providing local London families with a health centre featuring a swimming pool, a gym, a cafeteria and even some farmland on which food was grown.
Alongside these facilities, members of the Pioneer Centre received annual health checkups, through which we learned the foundations of how things like our income, our community, and our connection with nature can affect our health and wellbeing.
You can read more about the Peckham Experiment on this website, which looks to preserve the legacy of the world’s first social prescription.
The Blue Prescribing Project
The Blue Prescribing Project was a wetland health pilot programme specifically co-designed and delivered by the Mental Health Foundation and Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust to promote a range of mental and physical health benefits. This was achieved through helping people engage with wetland nature like marshlands and ponds at the London Wetlands Centre, alongside a self-management course.
The project’s aim was to improve mental health by harnessing the link between people and nature. It was designed to support specific groups of people - vulnerable single parents, people with long-term health conditions, vulnerable diverse groups and people recovering from long COVID-19.
The organisations involved evaluated the outcomes of the 300 participants, to research how connection with ‘watery’ nature could help people’s mental health. This showed that the project helped people by causing positive changes for feeling worthwhile and happiness, and increases with life satisfaction.
While the pilot has now come to an end, you can read more about how The Blue Prescribing Project went here.
Theatre, Music & Comedy
It’s not all getting outdoors! In fact a lot of social prescribing projects across the UK have their basis in the arts and culture. From dance, to music, to performing and watching comedy, if someone can make or appreciate art by doing it, there’s probably a social prescription for it somewhere.
By watching, performing, and creating art themselves, people can reconnect with their creativity, share laughter, and appreciate music and storytelling. These programmes are often lead by artists, comedians and thespians themselves, but are designed to make sure that even people who’ve never performed or created before can dip their toes into the art form.
Getting involved with the arts can have powerful and lasting effects on health. It can help to protect against a range of mental health conditions, help manage mental ill-health and support recovery, all while giving someone a powerful form of expression.
You can find out more about some of the wide range of culture-based social prescriptions on the National Academy of Social Prescribing’s website.