Health Education England (HEE elfh) has developed an elearning resource to support link workers to deliver social prescribing.

Social prescribing enables all primary care staff and local agencies to refer people to a link worker. Link workers give people time and focus on what matters to the person as identified through shared decision making or personalised care and support planning. They connect people to community groups and agencies for practical and emotional support. They collaborate with local partners to support community groups to be accessible and sustainable and help people to start new groups.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to embedding social prescribing link workers within every primary care network (PCN) as part of a wider shift towards universal personalised care. The aim is for at least 900,000 people to be referred to social prescribing schemes by 2023/24.

The elearning includes the core elements and skills required to do the job and deliver social prescribing as part of a PCN multi-disciplinary team.

The six sessions are:

1. Introduction to the social prescribing link worker role
2. Developing personalised care and support plans with people
3. Developing partnerships
4. Introducing people to community groups and VCSE organisations
5. Safeguarding vulnerable people
6. Keeping records and measuring impact

For more information about the programme, including details of how to access, please visit: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/social-prescribing/