Social prescribing is a means of enabling healthcare professionals and other professionals to refer people to a range of local, non-clinical services, primarily provided by the voluntary and community sector. The problems of social isolation, fear and loneliness and often associated inactivity have negative consequences for health and can particularly impact older age groups, those with chronic health problems, people with mental health difficulties and psychosocial needs, carers, single parents, migrant and immigrant and minority ethnic groups. Social prescribing began as a community-led movement that seeks to address these needs in a holistic way using an assets-based approach by empowering participants to improve their Health and Wellbeing.

This document was developed to support the development of social prescribing within the HSE. It sets out a common approach for the delivery of social prescribing across the organisation. It is primarily designed to support HSE staff and the community and voluntary sector involved in the delivery of HSE-funded social prescribing services. The document may also be of interest to a broader audience, including other funders of social prescribing beyond the HSE as well as any person or organisation with an interest in social prescribing.

A social prescribing service generally has a number of key components:

• a referral from a healthcare professional/other professional or self-referral into the service
• an intervention between the service user and a social prescribing link worker. The intervention can take up to eight sessions
• supporting the service user to access local voluntary community and social enterprise organisations or services through discussion and joint decision making
• measuring the impact of the social prescribing on the person, the wider community and the health service