At Access Elemental Social Prescribing we have had a great year and have helped all of our customers continue to improve community mental health and wellbeing across all of their sectors.
In the last year alone we have seen an increase of 6,916 individuals making social prescribing referrals through our social prescribing software. We have also had over half a million contacts with social prescribing link workers this year to help improve the support delivered across the country.
As we head towards the end of 2023 we have been incredibly busy getting prepared for 2024. One of the biggest things we are working towards is to raise awareness of the benefits of social prescribing across primary care. We are planning multiple webinars with some of our primary care customers to showcase their experiences, attending multiple events to get the message across, as well as sharing articles and guides on how best to implement social prescribing across primary care to address how to overcome some of the key challenges for primary care, including funding.
To keep up-to-date with all of our December social prescribing festivities and our New Year plans follow our Linkedin to never miss a thing.
What is the biggest challenge for social prescribing across primary care?
We know social prescribing works and we know how important it is for Primary Care Managers and Digital Transformation leads to successfully be able to embed social prescribing.
Across November at The Access Group, we held our annual Access All Areas. Access All Areas is two weeks’ worth of webinars, addressing a variety of topics, themes, and areas across our Health, Support, and Care Division. We held numerous sessions on social prescribing, the new social prescribing standards, and social prescribing in housing. In our webinars, we also had different customers join in with discussions and share their stories. To watch our sessions back sign up to Access All Areas today to get all our sessions on demand.
In our session Sharing Social Care Best Practice for Local Authorities in London we got our attendees to answer a poll about the biggest challenge they face with social prescribing. The poll showed that over 50% of attendees said securing funding and funding in general was a major concern.
We are aware that the funding status from the ARRS is unknown after March 2024 and we know how valuable social prescribing link workers are across primary care to reduce GP attendance, generate cost savings, and most importantly improve community health and wellbeing.
It is vital therefore that Primary Care Managers have the right software in place to measure the impacts of social prescribing to help secure better social prescribing funding.
To make each step of securing social prescribing funding easier we have produced an article on all the best ways to secure funding and build partnerships with other organisations to improve outcomes further. We have also highlighted what local authorities must do to secure and apply for additional funding the government is offering until January 2024. For more information read our social prescribing funding article today.
What have been the biggest achievements our Access Elemental customers have achieved this year?
Across 2023 our customers have achieved many great things across the year. We have helped many customers adopt social prescribing across a number of different sectors including housing, education, and primary care to show how social prescribing works best when it is co-produced across different organisations.
We have helped Apex Housing fight food poverty and better record the impacts of their Welfare Advice scheme. In total they have delivered almost 65,000 kg of food and have supported almost 200 homes with community supermarkets in their mission to help support more families get back on their feet because of the cost of living crisis.
Equally Warm Wales has helped fight fuel poverty by offering social prescribing services across Wales by acknowledging that health starts at home by raising the awareness of how the wider social determinants of health, especially housing, can impact someone’s mental health and wellbeing. In fact 74% of individuals felt more satisfied with life after engaging with social prescribing.
Action Together has also been working hard to deliver better social prescribing services across their community and has been able to record that 94% of individuals noticed an improvement in their health and wellbeing since engaging with social prescribing.
We have had an amazing year this year creating bespoke dashboards to capture what matters to our customers and their community. We have also become the first official social prescribing partner with the PRSB to work towards being the first social prescribing software conformant to the new social prescribing standards.
As we head into 2024, we want to continue to improve our services to improve outcomes, raise more awareness on why social prescribing is important, and help services better record their impacts to secure future funding to make it more sustainable both now and in future.
To see first-hand the work we are doing as we head into the new year contact us today and we can show you how we can help make your social prescribing new year’s resolutions become a reality.
Discover more about The Access Group HSC:
The Access Group HSC’s portfolio of integrated solutions empowers professionals in healthcare, support, and social care services to deliver joined-up quality and preventative care. With over 30 years of experience, they support local authorities alongside small, medium, and large organisations, to focus on the individual with the freedom to make it personal.
