Connecting communities: A qualitative investigation of the challenges in delivering a national social prescribing service to reduce loneliness

Loneliness is a global public health concern linked to a range of negative health outcomes (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2018. The Lancet. 391(10119), 426). Internationally, this has led to the development of a number of interventions, but these are rarely implemented or evaluated on a large scale. This...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health & social care in the community Vol. 28; no. 5; pp. 1535 - 1543
Main Authors: Holding, Eleanor, Thompson, Jill, Foster, Alexis, Haywood, Annette
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2020
John Wiley and Sons Inc
Subjects:
Community
Community health care
community interventions
evaluation
Health problems
Health services
Health status
Humans
Infrastructure
Intervention
Interviews
Liaison
Loneliness
Loneliness - psychology
National programmes
Original
Prescribing
Public health
qualitative
Quality of Life
Social Environment
social isolation
Social Isolation - psychology
social prescribing
Social services
Social Support
Social Welfare - psychology
Social Work - methods
United Kingdom
Volunteers
Workers
United Kingdom
evaluation
social isolation
loneliness
social prescribing
qualitative
community interventions
ISSN:0966-0410, 1365-2524, 1365-2524
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Loneliness is a global public health concern linked to a range of negative health outcomes (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2018. The Lancet. 391(10119), 426). Internationally, this has led to the development of a number of interventions, but these are rarely implemented or evaluated on a large scale. This paper is one of the first of its kind to describe elements of an evaluation of a large‐scale national social prescribing scheme to reduce loneliness, deploying individual link workers to signpost people to community activities. Reporting on findings from interviews with staff (n = 25 of which 6 were repeat interviews) and volunteers (n = 9) between October 2017 and December 2018 in localities across the United Kingdom. We reflect on the complexities of the link worker role, the challenges of service delivery and the importance of community infrastructure. There was evidence that highly skilled link workers who had developed positive relationships with providers and service‐users were key to the success of the intervention. As well as providing an effective liaison and signposting function, successful link workers tailored the national programme to local need to proactively address specific gaps in existing service provision. For social prescribing services to be successful and sustainable, commissioners must consider additional funding of community infrastructure.
Bibliography:Funding information
We acknowledge the Co‐op and British Red Cross charity partnership who funded this service.
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:0966-0410
1365-2524
1365-2524
DOI:10.1111/hsc.12976