Guidance for Social Prescribing services

We want to work with social prescribing services to develop opportunities for participants once they’ve been through the programme. Read further information on the Patient Voices programme.

The programme will support social prescribing services and organisations to: 

  • Involve powerful, important and influential patient voices to advocate for the impact of social prescribing 
  • Raise awareness of local social prescribing support and services within the community to improve access 
  • Explore opportunities to work with people with lived experience to help shape and improve social prescribing services 
  • Build relationships with VCSE and community services to strengthen place-based partnerships and support continuity of care for patients. 
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Submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to share your ideas around how ‘Patient Voice’ could benefit your social prescribing service! 

For more information, please contact mollie.mccormick@nhs.net

An online form to share your ideas for involving ‘patient voices’ and express your interest in working with social prescribing lived experience leads to improve services.

This is an opportunity for social prescribing services to share how they’d like to use patient voice, to enable us to design a programme that best fits the roles patients could fulfil after.

London-based social prescribing employers/services based in:

  • Primary Care Networks
  • Secondary Care or Acute Services
  • Local Authorities
  • VCFSE Organisations


Guidance for Social Prescribing Services and 2023/24 applicants

When launching the programme, we developed guidance for social prescribing services on how to communicate and share the opportunity with their clients. This has been developed based on conversations with social prescribing managers in London. We also developed guidance for applicants. See below.

  • Social Prescribing Link Workers can share directly with clients during or after meetings. And can offer support to clients with filling out the application   
  • Reach out via email to clients who have previously used the service   
  • When meeting people in the community, via Social Prescribing Link Workers, volunteers or via community events   
  • Promote among local VCSE organisations, particularly those that have developed strong relationships with your social prescribing service and receives referrals from your service   
  • Share with healthcare professionals based at or referring into your service (a GP practice, hospital, clinic or other healthcare setting)   
  • Attach the poster below to emails, printout and share directly with clients or put up in your service, for example – in GP practice reception areas or hospital waiting rooms.  
  • Clients who are/were engaged in the social prescribing support and their own health & wellbeing goals   
  • People keen to develop their confidence & skills and express their journey  
  • Clients returning to the service with the same issues   
  • People who are interested in getting out of their comfort zone  
  • Clients who have shared feedback (positive or negative) about the service and their experience. 

Social prescribing can take many forms. You may have received support from a link worker based at your local GP practice, at a community or pop-up event or been referred to a social prescriber through your clinician based in hospital. 
A social prescriber is someone who has given the time and space to talk through your non-medical concerns and signposted you to support services in your local area. Useful resources:   

  • Develop your skills in storytelling, presentation and communication skills, useful for future working opportunities 
  • Connect with a group of people who have been through similar experiences 
  • A platform to share your experience, and what you genuinely feel and think, with support to develop and share your story across London 
  • The chance to explore future roles or opportunities helping to improve social prescribing services in London.

A short video on what you can get from the Patient Voices for Social Prescribing programme.