Two projects have been undertaken one of which involved two demonstrations sites in East Lancashire and included social prescribing services commissioned by East Lancs and Blackburn clinical commissioning groups. The second project focused on data held within primary care across 10 GP practices in the NWC.

Both our studies reinforce data gaps identified in other studies but more importantly highlight that data related to the wider determinants of health is not being routinely collected for social prescribing making it difficult to evidence its impacts on health inequalities. We emphasise the need for more focus on exploring equity with social prescribing and ensuring appropriate data is collected to evidence impacts. It is important to consider variations is who is accessing social prescribing, how they access, what happens when people are in the service and how outcomes might differ for different groups.

Next steps
We are building on our current work and plan to collaborate on grant funding applications that help further explore and address our findings. This includes understanding barriers and facilitators to accessing social prescribing for particular groups for example South Asian communities. Please do get in touch if you would like to be involved?

Our work has also led us to working on an international book collaboration focussed on social prescribing, We have written a chapter on the role of Social Prescribing in addressing health inequalities- watch this space!

Key outputs
Social prescribing scoping summary briefing

Social prescribing and health inequalities poster presentation

TIPS FOR EVALUATING YOUR SOCIAL PRESCRIBING SERVICE WITH AN EQUITY LENS

The feasibility of identifying health inequalities in social prescribing referrals and declines using primary care patient records (Research Paper)

Social Prescribing Blog