Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 27 of the Government's Loneliness strategy, what progress his Department has made on piloting a new accredited learning programme for social prescribing link workers.

NHS England has supported the development of a Level 3 Certificate in Social Prescribing, which is currently being piloted with a group of link workers across the North of England. An online learning programme has also been created working with Health Education England and partners. The first module is now live and can be found at the following link:

www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/social-prescribing/