This workstream aimed to: 

1. Support local areas and services to demonstrate the impact of social prescribing and community led approaches 
2.  Build the infrastructure in ICBs and across the system to build the evidence for social prescribing and use this to inform commissioning 
3. Shape national guidance and support for demonstrating the impact of social prescribing on a local and national scale 

Key impacts and achievements 

• Increased awareness of Social Prescribing Information Standard and Minimum Dataset across London 
• Social prescribing services are better able to demonstrate their impact and have a stronger ability to develop an evaluation process 
• Supported 12x projects across London to evaluate their own impact on social prescribing services as part of the Social Prescribing Innovators Programme 
• 3/5 ICBs have a designated lead for developing the infrastructure around measuring the impact of social prescribing, docked into population health 
• Informed national support from NASP and NHSE guidance to be in line with what is useful for the frontline 

Why was this work important?

Preventative, integrated services which tackle inequalities are an increasing priority for the NHS and VCFSE sector both nationally and locally. Further investment into social prescribing and its activities is key to ensure continued movement towards more preventative, integrated, and health inequalities focused care. Measuring the impact of social prescribing and community led approaches is vital to understand where and why to invest money and resources both locally and nationally. 

Social prescribing services have run for many years without proper infrastructure to evaluate, often relying on the initiative of lone managers or pilot projects to gather evidence, which lacks sustainability. This has led to a great degree of variation in the approach and success of measuring social prescribing impact. 

Partnerships, networks and funding 

The Community Led Prevention team ran the Social Prescribing Evaluation Community of Practice for 13 months. This brought together people from across the system who are measuring social prescribing impact or aspiring to. This led to a co-production group to develop the Social Prescribing Evaluation Toolkit. 

A key group is the NASP international evidence collaborative which brings together academics and other colleagues to share the latest social prescribing research and evidence. Join for the opportunity to develop new partnerships and access the latest evidence demonstrating social prescribing impact. 

The team worked closely with NASP and NHS England, communicating challenges shared from the ground whilst disseminating national policy across London in a digestible way. The team helped shape the National Minimum Dataset (video – 17 mins) for social prescribing and Social Prescribing Information standard.  

Read more about how the Social Prescribing Minimum dataset can benefit services and commissioners in our toolkit.  

Main projects and outputs   

Guidance for Social Prescribing Services to demonstrate their impact 

• Social Prescribing Evaluation Toolkit 
• Social Prescribing Evaluation Toolkit walkthrough video (2 mins) 
• Social Prescribing Evaluation Toolkit Launch Event video (41 mins)
• 17 minute video on SP information standard and minimum dataset 

The latest evidence for social prescribing  

• Summary of the latest evidence for social prescribing 
• How services are demonstrating impact across London – Social Prescribing Evaluation Showcase 
  • Social Prescribing Evaluation Showcase slides 

Resources for improving services and managing improvement projects 

• Workshop for developing a theory of change and planning measures for social prescribing improvement projects 

Support for building the case for social prescribing 

• Conversation guide for social prescribing managers to demonstrate the impact of their services to PCNs and commissioners 
• Narrative pack to help explain why social prescribing is critical for the health care system and beyond 

What have been the common challenges? 

The common challenges to this have been: 

• Lack of infrastructure around measuring social prescribing impact at ICB, place and service level e.g. managers, ring-fenced data analytical time 
• Lack of effective and sustainable systems to record social prescribing data and code for social determinants 
• Lack of ring-fenced time, support and training for social prescribing link workers to record data in a meaningful way 
• Lack of data-sharing and interoperability between social prescribing teams, general practice, public health and data teams 
• Lack of investment into social prescribing to measure its impacts, leading to a circular problem of needing data to demonstrate impact but needing to invest in a system to do so first

What have been the key enablers? 

1. Giving social prescribing managers time, resources and training to develop processes to demonstrate impact 
2. Using a case management system such as Joy or Elemental, and embedding this over a larger footprint, e.g. borough or ICB 
3. ICB vision and oversight, gearing towards a process to share the impact ICB-wide e.g. a dashboard  
4. ICB wide agreement on what measures to collect and ways to collect this, e.g. a template or standard 
5. Data analyst resource at ICBs and GP federations working with social prescribing services  
6. Multistakeholder working groups to keep developing processes and problem solving 

Resources

Key external resources 

NASP Evidence Reviews 

Social Prescribing Oxford Observatory – research and monitoring of social Prescribing 

Social Prescribing Information standard