ABSTRACT
Introduction: Social Prescribing has an established recognition regarding the benefits provided to the health-related social needs of adults, but little is known about how the intervention addresses young people's needs. There is optimism regarding the central role of two core mechanisms that allows social prescribing to be effective, such as the empathetic role of Link Workers and the connection with community resources.This paper aims to describe the role played by Link Workers working a Social Prescribing intervention targeting young people. Description: This paper adopts a case study methodology to describe the role of Link Workers addressing young people's needs and implementing Social Prescribing scheme in Sheffield (UK). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with four of the seven link workers of one organisation based in Sheffield. Data were analysed through an inductive approach for emerging themes. Discussion: We provided a description of the profiles and background of Link Workers and described the three models of referral pathways into the intervention. The paper also shows how Link Workers identify young people's needs and how they connect with the community. Conclusion: Based on the insights and the internationally accepted definition of Social Prescribing, we provide a visual representation of the Social Prescribing model and discuss challenges. The paper highlights lessons learned and future directions regarding the role of Link Workers from the case study.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the connections between, and respective contributions of, evidence-based and experience-based methods in the redesign of healthcare services. BACKGROUND: Evidence-based medicine (EBM) preceded (and inspired) the development of evidence-based design (EBD) for healthcare facilities. A key feature of debate around EBM has been the question of interpretation of the guidance by experienced clinicians, to achieve maximum efficacy for individual patients. This interpretation and translation of guidelines-avoiding a formulaic approach, allowing for divergent cultural and geographical exigencies, creating innovative, context-specific solutions-is the subject of this discussion, which examines the potential for integration of evidence-based and experience-based approaches in the development of creative solutions to healthcare services in England. This paper examines Practice-Based Commissioning (PBC) in England, which devolves responsibility for commissioning new services for patients to frontline clinicians, relying on their understanding of patient needs at the local level. METHODS: An 18-month project, funded by the Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC), examined PBC frameworks in England, investigating the impact of different models of governance on the development of service redesign proposals to answer the following questions: How do clinicians interpret the multiplicity of guidance from government agencies and translate this into knowledge that can be effectively used to redesign patient care pathways aligned with local healthcare priorities? How can understanding patient and staff "experiences" and key "touch points" of interaction with local healthcare services be used to provide a creative, customized solution to the design of healthcare services in a local, community-based framework?
