Will more social prescribing save money?
Social prescribing: coffee mornings, singing groups, and dance lessons on the NHS
BMJ 2018; 363 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4857 (Published 19 November 2018)
Chris, I am a firm believer in social prescribing, though I don't have a battery of quantitative research statistics to support this. My own specialism is arts (specifically creative dance) and social wellbeing and I have tried to promote social prescribing in my area (south-east Scotland) with little success. In recent years I have tried to engage with local GPs, offering gentle creative movement (seated or standing) for patients whom they thought would benefit. As I am retired, I was offering these for free in return for data to write a paper and the local council supported me by giving me free accommodation. In the first trawl, I received zero response from GPs. In the second, I found one GP who was willing to "suggest" my classes to suitable patients. I also advertised locally but in a public advert I could not be specific about the participants I was aiming at, so I had a very disparate class, of which 50% really wanted something more active but were drawn to my class because it was free! Among those who said they did benefit were an amputee who seldom ventured out, someone with a chronic back problem and one with a shoulder problem. None of these were my target group but if they felt they benefited, that was justification enough for running the class.
I have since found two linked surgeries in your location, which share a community liaison officer to further the cause of social prescribing and am formulating a proposal to put to one of the local universities regarding a plan to promote the concept. Clearly I cannot be specific at this stage - I'm sure you will understand.
Now I am perfectly aware that social prescribing - through arts or in any other form - does not suit everyone, but if only one person benefits, there must be a saving of medical resources. May I suggest you look at some of the references on my profile page, e.g. Burns, Oliver & Karkou (2008), Oliver (2009), Oliver (2013), Karkou, Oliver & Lycouris (Eds) (2017)? If you are interested in further dialogue on the subject, since we are in the same geographical area, I can give you more information which I don't wish to put in the public domain just yet.
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