Newcastle Bridges Clinical Commissioning Group

Ambition: City-wide Social Prescribing

The project is led by the Newcastle Bridges Clinical Commissioning Group and aims to develop a single cohesive approach to social prescribing in primary care for the city of Newcastle that will improve the quality of life for vulnerable adults with the full range of LTCs and mental health issues.

Social prescribing supports GPs to refer and encourage people to take up activities instead of, or alongside, their medical prescription. This could include going to the gym, joining a reading group, or taking up a hobby. By developing a model to meet the range of needs of patients with LTCs the project will move away from a disease specific view of LTCs.

The partnership's approach is underpinned by the recognition of the importance of non traditional service provision as complementary to traditionally commissioned services. The ambition is for the social prescribing system to be embedded in all LTC pathways used across Newcastle, therefore enabling better responses to co-morbidity. When Newcastle Bridges develops into a commissioning consortium it expects to implement the medico-social model underpinning its vision.

The Newcastle team has recently created a visual map of existing primary care services and is working with health care professionals and service users to scale up social prescribing.

For more on the project download the detailed People Powered Health project summaries