Social prescribing connects people to activities, groups and support that improve mental and physical wellbeing. Many things that affect our health can’t be treated by doctors or medicine alone, like loneliness, debt, or stress due to financial pressures or poor housing.
Social prescribing connects people to non-medical support to address these types of issues, helping to change the circumstances that can make people unwell. It can empower people to manage existing health problems, to get the right benefits or to get back into employment. It can help people to connect through group activities and to grow in confidence. Social prescribing often begins with a referral from a GP, hospital, charity or other organisation to a Social Prescribing Link Worker.
Many socially prescribed activities are run by voluntary and community organisations.
'The voluntary community sector has a big part to play in supporting people’s health and wellbeing and preventing them from getting to a crisis point.' - Jane Hartley, National Academy for Social Prescribing
Which is where NCVS comes in. We help by supporting the health and social care and VCSE sectors to connect, build relationships, making it easier to refer. Our Big Green Book is a great example of this. We help by providing training, workshops and advice to strengthen organisations in the VCSE sector so that they can offer community-based activities and services for people to be referred into. Through our networks we champion the VCSE to ensure community-led approaches are embedded into health and social care and look for opportunities for the VCSE sector to play a greater role in designing and delivering health and care solutions.
If you are interested in finding out more about social prescribing, the National Academy for Social Prescribing has lots of information and resources, some of which NCVS have contributed to through the GreenSpace Green Social Prescribing programme. | 
