New social prescribing sites opened in partnership with NHS Property Services

NHS Property Services (NHSPS) has opened 25 new social prescribing sites in the past year, in collaboration with various health organisations across the country, including PCNs.

There are now 100 prescribing hubs across the country, through partnerships between NHSPS, which manages approximately 10% of the total NHS estate, and PCNs, ICBs, trusts, GPs and voluntary groups.  

The partnership works by turning vacant or underused indoor or outdoor spaces into social prescribing hubs and green spaces that can be used for activities such as gardening groups, cookery classes, therapy and citizens advice. NHSPS started this series of redevelopments in 2019.

One of the new sites is a communal garden next to Haxby and Wigginton Health Centre in York, called Whole Life Community Garden. It was redeveloped by NHSPS, who also owns the land, and is now maintained by a local community group. It hosts horticultural activities and other social prescribing services.

Mast PCN, in West Yorkshire, is involved in a similar partnership at a garden in Skelmanthorpe.

An indoor space was also transformed into Flourish Wellbeing Hub in Wallasey, the Wirral, in partnership with Cheshire and Merseyside ICB, which since November 2022, has supported 1,306 residents with services. Prior to being used as a hub, the space had been vacant for over three years.

Matilda Jones, social prescribing hub facilitator at Wallasey, said: ‘It’s about addressing those wider determinants of health, the impact of debt, poverty, depression, anxiety, physically restricting health conditions, the cost-of-living crisis we’re going through.’  

Suffolk and North East Essex ICS has also worked in collaboration with the NHSPS social prescribing programme to develop a community garden at the Kennedy Way Medical Centre in Clacton.

Sustainability lead at the ICS, Andrew Urquhart, recently told our sister title Healthcare Leader: ‘‘The [resulting] green space, with raised beds, a men’s shed and vegetable growing is a fantastic example of what can be done relatively inexpensively.’

‘It’s about nature and biodiversity, and we’ve interlinked it with our estates strategy. We’re replicating it now; a second GP practice in Abbey Field, Colchester, has done a similar thing.’

NHSPS said that there was increasing demand on the voluntary sector to deliver services to help address social needs, and that it hoped to help support local communities by identifying and redeveloping vacant space within its portfolio.

Dr. Min Rodriguez, head of social impact at NHSPS, said: ‘We are really proud of the impact our social prescribing sites have had on individuals and communities – just between 2022 and 2023 we have reached 60,000 patients. Through collaboration and innovation, we remain dedicated to expanding our network of hubs and enhancing access to vital support services for all.’

The NHS long term plan set a goal that at least 900,000 patients would be referred to social prescribing by 2023/24.

Personalised care expert Dr Samual Finnikin recently told Pulse PCN about the importance of proactive social prescribing to address health inequalities.