#SocialPrescribingDay – How social prescribing benefits people’s health and wellbeing

Social prescribing is a powerful tool for supporting people with their health and wellbeing.

Here at Together Active, we’ve been working in the space for a few years now, helping social prescribers learn how to talk about physical activity and providing motivation. We’ve learned how broad and diverse the social prescriber role is, and how inspirational social prescribers are.

Social Prescribing Day is an annual celebration of social prescribing, recognising link workers, local community groups and regional and national organisations which support people’s health and wellbeing.

Created by the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP), the day raises awareness of what social prescribing is, how it works, and how it changes lives.

What is social prescribing?

There are many things that affect our health which can’t be treated by doctors or medicine alone, such as loneliness, or stress.  Social prescribing connects people to non-medical support to address these issues.

An example of how this works may involve a Social Prescribing Link Worker (or an equivalent role) helping someone who is isolated to join a befriending group, gardening project, or another type of community group  based on what works for them.

Why is it important?

Social prescribing is important as it connects people to activities, groups and support that improve health and wellbeing. It enables us to motivate and engage patients to move more in their daily lives, and use behaviour change principals to develop new healthy routines.

It has many other additional benefits such as tackling health inequalities (for example, our ageing society and rising rates of loneliness), taking pressure off the NHS and more.

Alex Brown, Regional Social Prescribing & Physical Activity Coordinator at Active Partners Trust shares why he thinks it makes a difference:

“Social prescribing is providing a great way to help support people to become active. There have been some lovely stories about people connecting with the outdoors and nature via a wide range of activities such as Nordic Walking or Stand Up Paddleboarding. Even a walk at their local park that are helping them to see some of the benefits of being active, such as improved mood and wellbeing, or reduced pain in joints, and meeting new people.

I am really excited to see how this continues to develop and how more people can be supported to improve their health and wellbeing through social prescribing.”

Sarah Paine, Midlands Regional Lead at NASP shares why she thinks social prescribing is important:

“Working together to meet the potential for social prescribing where we all benefit – highlighting the amazing opportunities that local infrastructure organisations offer as a key stakeholder in SP.”

Social Prescribing and Physical Activity Workshops

Here at Together Active, we offer workshops delivered by our in house training team that allow you to embed physical activity in your work with patients to enable them to lead healthier lives.

Delivered via Zoom workshops in two parts over two weeks, these workshops are a mix of interactive tasks and roleplay and presentation.

How you can get involved

You can find out more about Social Prescribing Day here as well as ways you can get involved.

Check out our ‘Guidance for Healthcare Professionals‘ on our Active My Way website. On the website you can also find ways that people can get active, including the online activity finder, where they can find a variety of free online workouts.

Read next: How being active can improve mental health