Social prescribing and what it means to you
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A new social prescribing programme for Bolton is one of the new delivery models expected in the Bolton Locality Plan and, as part of its engagement on the Transformation programme, The Bolton Engagement Alliance (Healthwatch Bolton and Bolton CVS) have engaged with local residents in order to understand: What the term ‘social prescribing’ means to people; How people thing a social prescribing programme should be shaped and developed; How social prescribing can be best communicated to people; If there are any potential barriers to embedding social prescribing.
Field researchers used a semi-structured questionnaire and conducted informal interviews with individuals on a one to one basis. All comments were recorded verbatim against the relevant question prompts. We spoke to 127 people at 9 workshops in Bolton In November 2017. This fieldwork produced 377 comments.
The findings indicated: More than half of the people we spoke to expressed limited understanding of what social prescribing is. Of those who did have some understanding the idea of social prescribing was broadly supported. People raised a number of questions about how the delivery model might work in practice. Referral pathways, community group involvement, role ambiguity, professionalism and information governance were all raised as areas where further information would be welcome. People raised capacity, appropriate staffing, transport and information as potential barriers.
This report contains 3 recommendations specifically around the themes of leadership, assets and staffing.