Introduction
Social prescribing is a mechanism of care referring people to non-clinical forms of support and services in their local communities to improve health and wellbeing.
Despite its global proliferation in practice, there remain research gaps which pose a major challenge for policy and the further development of social prescribing.
This project aims to advance our understanding of social prescribing implementation in the UK by analysing a large scale dataset collected by Access Elemental, including data on over 510,000 individuals referred to social prescribing since 2017.
Aims
We will use the Access Elemental dataset to explore four research questions:
1. Referrals: Who has been receiving social prescribing in the UK in the last decade as social prescribing programmes have rolled out at scale, for what referral reasons, and how does this vary in different locations?
2. Pathways: What do social prescribing pathways look like? What contacts and interventions do patients receive, how is inequality produced or reinforced at different stages of the social prescribing lifecycle, and what factors predict continued engagement with the pathway?
3. Impacts: What impact does social prescribing have on mental wellbeing and primary care service utilisation in different population groups? Does pathway delivery affect whether these outcomes are achieved?
4. Data quality: How can this novel dataset be developed for future research purposes? What recommendations and guidelines can be made for other social prescribing platforms to optimise their data quality and support future research in this burgeoning area?
This project will provide large-scale detailed data on the “nuts and bolts” of social prescribing as a national programme and is anticipated to have a major relevance to a wide national and international audience.
We will support our research with an impact and engagement programme targeting academics, policy makers/commissioners, health/social care professionals, social prescribing professionals, community organisations and the public.
Publications
Fancourt, D., Bu, F. (2026). Patterns and predictors of outcome monitoring amongst link workers: Learnings from the National Social Prescribing Link Worker Survey 2025. PloS One. [DOI]
Bu, F., Hayes, D., Munford, L., Fancourt, D. (2026). The impact of social prescribing on well-being outcomes in a nationwide analysis. Nature Health. [DOI]
Bone, J. K., Bu, F., Fancourt, D., Hayes, D. (2026). Using electronic health records to evaluate a children and young people’s social prescribing service: Challenges and implications for research and practice. BMJ Mental Health, 29(1). [DOI]