How are social prescribing link workers creating and maintaining professional networks in different socioeconomic areas?

Problem

Social prescribing link workers are being deployed across the NHS. A key part of their role is to network and establish relationships between primary care and community organisations. The aim of these networks is to create referral pathways and enable organisations to work collaboratively to fill gaps in community services provision. It is not currently clear how social prescribing might work in areas with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. In these areas, community infrastructure may be limited and overstretched, and thus link workers may struggle to build sustainable partnerships and social prescribing pathways that are responsive to patients’ needs.

Approach

We interviewed 20 link workers working across different socioeconomic areas (defined by Index of Multiple Deprivation) about their experience of undertaking their roles and connecting to organisations in their community. We also collected network data about the interactions link workers have with professionals in primary care and the voluntary and community sector. This includes data on the types of organisations they are connecting with and referring patients to, the number of work contacts they have, how frequently they interact with them, who they go to for advice and support, as well as who they are working with to improve service capacity. Qualitative interview data is being analysed thematically and descriptive statistical approaches are being applied to the network data.

Findings

Our data highlight a number of challenges that link workers working in areas with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage face and the crucial role that they play as bridges between primary care and community organisations. The data also speaks to the different ways in which link workers are being implemented across the NHS and the impact these different implementation models may have on link workers’ ability to form and sustain social prescribing pathways.

Consequences

Our final analysis will help characterise the relational aspect of the link worker role, highlight the barriers and facilitators to the networking link workers undertake, and identify the skills and support they may require to successfully fulfil their roles to, in turn, support the equitable implementation of social prescribing. This study is the first to apply network approaches to the study of social prescribing. Network methodologies are not currently widely employed in health and social care research in the UK. This project presents an opportunity to demonstrate the value of such approaches for studying major policy initiatives such as social prescribing.