Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of social prescribing to treat medical conditions.

No recent assessments have been made of the potential merits of social prescribing to treat medical conditions.

The Department commissions the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) to champion social prescribing and build the evidence base that will enable us to assess the benefits of the social prescribing programme.

The evidence base around nationally linked social prescribing is still evolving, and robust quantitative evidence is limited. However, a growing body of work is suggestive of positive effects in enhancing physical and mental health and wellbeing, building on existing positive local evidence.