Service-users’ perspectives of link worker social prescribing: a qualitative follow-up study

Wildman, Josephine M., Moffatt, Suzanne, Steer, Mel, Laing, Kirsty, Penn, Linda and O'Brien, Nicola (2019) Service-users’ perspectives of link worker social prescribing: a qualitative follow-up study. BMC Public Health, 19 (1). p. 98. ISSN 1471-2458

[img]
Preview
Text
s12889-018-6349-x.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Download (645kB) | Preview
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-6349-x

Abstract

Background: Social prescribing enables health-care professionals to address non-medical causes of ill-health by harnessing the resources of the voluntary and community sectors in patient care. Although increasingly popular in the UK, evidence for the effectiveness of social prescribing is inconclusive and longer-term studies are needed. This study aimed to explore experiences of social prescribing among people with long-term conditions one to two years after their initial engagement with a social prescribing service. Methods: Qualitative methods comprising semi-structured follow-up interviews were conducted with 24 users of a link worker social prescribing service who had participated in an earlier study. Participants were aged between 40 and 74 years and were living in a socioeconomically-deprived area of North East England. Results: Participants reported reduced social isolation and improvements in their condition management and health-related behaviours. However, many participants had experienced setbacks, requiring continued support to overcome problems due to multi-morbidity, family circumstances and social, economic or cultural factors. Findings indicated that, in this sample of people facing complex health and socioeconomic issues, longer-term intervention and support was required. Features of the link worker social prescribing intervention that were positively appraised by participants, included a highly personalised service to reflect individual goal setting priorities and a focus on gradual and holistic change dealing with issues beyond health. The important role of a strong and supportive relationship with an easily-accessible link worker in promoting sustained behaviour change highlights the importance of link worker continuity. A lack of suitable and accessible voluntary and community services for onward referral acted as a barrier to involvement for some participants. Conclusions: This study highlights issues of interest to commissioners and providers of social prescribing. Engagement with social prescribing for up to two years was examined and continued involvement was identified for those with complex issues, suggesting that a long-term intervention is required. The availability of onward referral services is an important consideration for social prescribing in a time of constrained public spending. From a research perspective, the range of improvements and their episodic nature suggest that the evaluation of social prescribing interventions requires both quantitative and qualitative data collected longitudinally.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding information: This work was funded by a grant from the Newcastle University Institute for Ageing (NUIA). The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NUIA. Suzanne Moffatt and Linda Penn are members of Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health. Fuse is a UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. Funding for Fuse from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, under the auspices of the UKCRC, is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent those of the funders or UKCRC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Subjects: B900 Others in Subjects allied to Medicine
L300 Sociology
L400 Social Policy
Department: Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Nursing, Midwifery and Health
Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User: Elena Carlaw
Date Deposited: 25 Jun 2019 10:55
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2023 09:30
URI: https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/39801

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics