The social cure of social prescribing: a mixed-methods study on the benefits of social connectedness on quality and effectiveness of care provision

What is it about?

Our research addresses a core challenge faced by health systems in the UK and internationally, namely the physical and psychological consequences of loneliness. There is growing recognition of the negative impacts of loneliness, and that the system through which patients often seek help- primary care - cannot adequately address patients’ psychosocial needs, and thus often fails to address the complex relationship between patients’ health and their social worlds. The present study investigates one possible solution to this problem: Social Prescribing. 
The efficacy of Social Prescribing (the use of community resources to provide holistic support to patients with complex social and health needs) has been demonstrated in a variety of academic and evaluation studies, and has recently been mainstreamed in NHS future planning. However, it currently lacks an underpinning theoretical framework which would allow practitioners to identify the ‘active ingredients’ of this approach and to adapt them to local needs. 
This is the unique contribution of the present paper. It provides a strongly-evidenced theoretical framework, the ‘Social Cure’ model of psychological wellbeing, as well as evidence that this framework can be successfully applied to the study of Social Prescribing. This innovative work uses a triangulation of methodologies (interviews with General Practitioners, Link Workers, Health Coaches, and Patients, as well as a longitudinal survey) to provide support for the value of the Social Cure in understanding Social Prescribing, as well as the Social Cure’s potential to refine and enhance the delivery of Social Prescribing initiatives. Our results also specify the social mechanisms through which primary care service use can be reduced in patients experiencing loneliness and chronic illness. 
The present work therefore makes several unique contributions:
a.	It identifies mechanisms that enable Social Prescribing interventions to work. 
b.	It identifies mechanisms that enable more effective use of primary care services.
c.	It reports the most comprehensive multi-perspective evaluation of an NHS model of Social Prescribing to date, with accounts from General Practitioners, Link Workers, Health Coaches and Patients. 


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