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LIVING
Social Prescribing
What is it, and why do we need it. By Lois Rogers.
When the NHS was set
up in 1948, demand
for healthcare was
expected to fall as the
population was cured of infection.
In fact, chronic conditions such as
diabetes, heart disease, lung disease
and the complications of obesity
have meant the service is facing ever
increasing levels of need.
More than 70 years on, NHS
leaders are realising that new
approaches are needed to tackle
these problems and a new drive has
begun to treat the NHS as a national
wellness service, rather than a
national illness service. Doctors are
being encouraged to introduce 'social
prescribing,' a range of diet, exercise
and mental wellbeing services to
provide people with better tools to
stay fit.
The NHS Long Term Plan
published in January 2019, aimed to
recruit 1,000 new social prescribing
'link workers', with a view to referring
at least 900,000 people for nonmedical
treatment by 2024. This in
turn, is part of the drive towards the
NHS offering 'universal personalised
care,' to at least 2.5m people by 2024.
The intention is to give people choice
and control over the way their care
is planned and delivered, focusing on
their individual priorities.
The department of health says
it has invested £70m in expanding
weight management programmes and
more than £1m over the next three
years to trial social prescribing in
general practice.
Novel ideas
These initiatives include a variety
of novel ideas. A year-long NHS
soup-and-shakes programme has
proved that in some cases people
can be helped to reverse their
Type 2 diabetes. Early data showed
participants lost more than a stone
in a month and two stone in three
months, with half of them able to
achieve remission of their Type 2
diabetes after one year.
A 'green prescribing' plan
has shown that contact with the
natural world improves mental
health, while weekly exercise
classes for the over 65s have shown
dramatic improvements in mobility,
independence and wellbeing.
The idea of prescribing exercise is
not new, though it does seem that fit
doctors are more likely to produce fit
patients. "Practitioners who smoke,
do little exercise, or eat unhealthy
food are less likely to counsel about
these areas, while doctors with a
healthy lifestyle counsel more often
on lifestyle habits," said the authors
of a study published in the British
Journal of General Practice in 2018.