Social prescribing can benefit a wide range of people, but is seen as working particularly well for people:¹⁵

• ·       with one or more long-term conditions;

• ·       who need support with their mental health;

• ·       who are lonely or isolated;

• ·       who have complex social needs which affect their wellbeing.

The referral can be made in a number of ways (including by self-referral in some areas) depending on the locality. As GPs can make a referral directly from their clinical system (eg via the Social Rx portal), contacting a surgery may be a way to find out more about who the link workers are locally.¹⁶

Once contact has been made with local link workers, you may want to ask them for information on their referral parameters and suggested assessment tools for health professionals that would be useful in the pharmacy setting.

However, while social prescribing can be tracked on GP systems using the IT codes of the SNOMED CT IT system for referral and the patient declining, community pharmacy lacks this facility. There is also a dearth of funding for community pharmacy to be involved in social prescribing.¹⁰