Dr Sara Bradley is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Wales. Prior to this position she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of the Highlands and Islands, in Scotland working in the Division of Rural Health and Wellbeing.  Her work focuses on social prescribing, rural service provision, mental health and wellbeing and community engagement and co-production.

Episode summary:

01.00  Dr Bradley shares her professional journey

02.30  What is social prescribing?

04.40  What kind of social prescribing has there been in the highlands and islands of Scotland?

07.05  Why is social prescribing administered by volunteer and community groups?

08.00  What are the challenges for rural and remote social prescribing?

11.05  What were Dr Bradleys key insights from her research?

15.30  Examples of how social prescribing helped a community

19.00  How does social prescribing integrate with the primary care system?

22.45  What would need to happen to make social prescribing more sustainable in rural/remote areas?

22.20  Does social prescribing depend on the local community?

26.30  What motivates the third sector to work on social prescribing?

28.20  Are there resources for rural prescribing?

Key messages:

There are a lot of non-medical factors that affect peoples’ health and wellbeing.

Social prescribing tries to address these non-medical factors, it is a holistic approach of trying to tackle these factors in the community and with the community.

Increasing confidence and self esteem allows participants to go on to do other activities and become more active in the community.

Social prescribing does not fit into conventional healthcare culture so there is a lack of capacity and funding within the system, for this reason third sector organizations take on these activities.

Challenging to provide consistent social prescribing service in remote and rural areas, there is poor access to public transport, poor broadband coverage, lack of capacity.

Rural and remote areas may not have enough people with similar issues to create a social prescribing activity, this has implications for fundability and continuity.

COVID19 had a big impact on volunteering, often volunteers are retired people who had more risks at this time.

Challenges: health service culture, patients and professionals do not know enough about social prescribing, referral pathways which are variable and complex, community link workers are employed in different ways, severity of people's needs, health inequalities are entrenched, funding structure, difficult to maintain continuity.

Great potential for many benefits of social prescribing.

Prescribing heritage based interventions through rural museums - drew attention to the need for co-productions in rural contexts and that projects need to be adapted to them. Danger of widening health inequalities if something is provided in one place but other surrounding communities don’t have any activities.

Person centered approach works very well.

Link workers can help connect the primary care system with social prescribing activities.  Clear referral pathways are needed.

Sustainable and longer term funding is important to help make social prescribing successful.

Funding, recognition and support are vital for sustainable social prescribing.

The third sector recognises that there is a great need for social prescribing, more so after the pandemic.

Contact: sara.bradley@southwales.ac.uk