Social Prescribing
(asked on 21st May 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's policy is on social prescribing.
‘Prevention is better than cure’, published by the Department in November 2018, highlighted the important role social prescribing can play in reducing people’s isolation and improving levels of activity.
As set out in the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England has committed to deliver at least £4.5 billion of new investment in primary medical and community health services over the next five years. Part of this investment will support the recruitment of over 1,000 trained social prescribing link workers - in place by the end of 2020/21 rising further by 2023/24, with the aim that over 900,000 people are able to be referred to social prescribing schemes by then.
The Prevention document and the Long Term Plan can be found at the following links:
www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/publication/nhs-long-term-plan/