Social prescribing gets its own academy

A new charity will develop best practice and training in social prescribing, the UK government has said.

The Department of Health and Social Care said that the National Academy for Social Prescribing would benefit patients with long term health problems by helping healthcare professionals to prescribe arts, sports, and leisure activities.

Announcing the creation of the academy on 23 October, England’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, said that thousands of patients were already benefiting “from activities like reading circles, choir groups, and walking football.”

The health department said that the academy would share best practice, develop training and accreditation, and improve the evidence base for social prescribing.

Helen Stokes-Lampard, outgoing chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, will chair the new organisation, which will initially be set up as a limited company before it applies for charitable status.

NHS England will fund the academy’s initial set-up costs of around £650 000 in 2019-20, and Arts Council England has agreed in principle to invest £125 000 a year for the first two years, the health department said. The department itself will prioritise £5m of grant funding for the academy in its budget for 2020-21.

James Sanderson, director of personalised care at NHS England and NHS Improvement, said that, with at least one in five GP appointments being non-medical, social prescribing had helped the NHS to improve tens of thousands of people’s lives. “Social prescribing is now a vital part of the NHS long term plan, and this national academy is a key part of that,” he said.

Stokes-Lampard said, “I’m looking forward to starting work with colleagues from so many sectors to bring social prescribing into the mainstream, to train and educate social prescribers of the future, and to establish a great evidence base and raise the profile of this fantastic initiative.”