Social prescribing: less rhetoric and more reality. A systematic review of the evidence
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TLDR
A systematic review of social prescribing programmes being widely promoted and adopted in the UK National Health Service found current evidence fails to provide sufficient detail to judge either success or value for money.Abstract:
Objectives Social prescribing is a way of linking patients in primary care with sources of support within the community to help improve their health and well-being. Social prescribing programmes are being widely promoted and adopted in the UK National Health Service and so we conducted a systematic review to assess the evidence for their effectiveness. Setting/data sources Nine databases were searched from 2000 to January 2016 for studies conducted in the UK. Relevant reports and guidelines, websites and reference lists of retrieved articles were scanned to identify additional studies. All the searches were restricted to English language only. Participants Systematic reviews and any published evaluation of programmes where patient referral was made from a primary care setting to a link worker or facilitator of social prescribing were eligible for inclusion. Risk of bias for included studies was undertaken independently by two reviewers and a narrative synthesis was performed. Primary and secondary outcome measures Primary outcomes of interest were any measures of health and well-being and/or usage of health services. Results We included a total of 15 evaluations of social prescribing programmes. Most were small scale and limited by poor design and reporting. All were rated as a having a high risk of bias. Common design issues included a lack of comparative controls, short follow-up durations, a lack of standardised and validated measuring tools, missing data and a failure to consider potential confounding factors. Despite clear methodological shortcomings, most evaluations presented positive conclusions. Conclusions Social prescribing is being widely advocated and implemented but current evidence fails to provide sufficient detail to judge either success or value for money. If social prescribing is to realise its potential, future evaluations must be comparative by design and consider when, by whom, for whom, how well and at what cost. Trial registration number PROSPERO Registration: CRD42015023501.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Implementation of social prescribing: lessons learnt from contextualising an intervention in a community hospital in Singapore
TL;DR: In this article , the authors reviewed the implementation of a social prescribing program from the exploratory phase to full implementation, and drew lessons learned in the process using an iterative approach, the implementation team constantly reviewed and adapted practices, work processes and outcome measurement tools based on data and stakeholder feedback to address implementation challenges.
Journal ArticleDOI
Social prescribing: Exploring general practitioners' and healthcare professionals' perceptions of, and engagement with, the <scp>NHS</scp> model
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors conducted an online survey with primary healthcare professionals (HCPs) within one clinical commissioning group (CCG) to ascertain how general practitioners and other HCPs within one CCG perceive and engage with the new NHS model.
Proceedings ArticleDOI
Social Prescribing Across the Lifespan with Virtual Humans
TL;DR: This work proposes using assistive technologies, namely social virtual agents for art prescription, to provide an easy-to-use, cost-effective and personalizable solution for older adults.
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