Waiting Well: Perioperative social prescribing in North East and North Cumbria
Earlier this year, Simon Bromhead, Development Lead at Ways to Wellness, told The National Academy of Social Prescribing about our pilot programme, PROSPeR, offering social prescribing support to people on the waiting list for hip and knee surgery, using targeted data to identify and reach those in the most deprived communities.
Key lessons from this case study
Using NHS data can be challenging but can ultimately help services to reach those patients that need help the most.
By engaging with patients in the community, social prescribing link workers can identify non-clinical issues affecting the patients’ wellbeing, and have the knowledge and networks to help tackle them.
Giving link workers a small ‘client support budget’ has allowed them to easily make small purchases that make a big difference. A common example is ‘sock putter-oners’, which help clients who have poor mobility to have a little bit more independence.
In the first year of delivery:
81 people have been supported, 89% of whom lived in the 20% most deprived communities
71 Wellbeing Stars™ were completed. The average improvement between the first and most recent Stars was 2.95, representing significant improvements in wellbeing for the clients that have been supported
74 goals were set of which 20 have been achieved so far
545 contacts completed, including indirect link work, 11 DNAs
Read the full case study here: https://socialprescribingacademy.org.uk/resources/waiting-well-perioperative-social-prescribing-in-north-east-and-north-cumbria/
