What Is Social Prescribing? The NHS Model Explained

A plain-English guide to social prescribing in England — how link workers, Primary Care Networks, and the NHS Long Term Plan connect patients to community support.

By Plinth Team

Social prescribing in England — an illustration showing a link worker connecting a patient with community services

Social prescribing is an approach that enables GPs, nurses, and other primary care professionals to refer patients to non-medical support in their local community. Instead of — or alongside — a clinical intervention, a patient might be connected to a walking group, debt advice, a volunteering opportunity, or a befriending service. The aim is to address the social, emotional, and practical factors that affect health but lie beyond what a prescription or referral to a consultant can fix.

TL;DR: Social prescribing connects NHS patients to community support via trained link workers based in GP surgeries and Primary Care Networks (PCNs). The NHS Long Term Plan committed to rolling out link workers across England from 2019, and there are now more than 3,600 in post. Over 1.3 million people were referred to social prescribing in 2023 alone. The model is supported nationally by the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) and funded through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS). Tools like Plinth's AI Service Directory and case management software help link workers manage this work efficiently.

How Social Prescribing Works in England

The NHS model of social prescribing centres on a three-step process: referral, conversation, and connection.

A GP, nurse, or other health professional identifies a patient whose needs are partly or wholly non-medical — loneliness, housing insecurity, financial stress, low mood, or lack of physical activity. Rather than exhausting the appointment trying to address issues that cannot be resolved clinically, they refer the patient to a social prescribing link worker.

The link worker meets with the patient, usually outside a clinical setting, for a structured "what matters to you?" conversation. This is not a triage; it is a collaborative discussion about the person's life, goals, and barriers. The link worker then works with the patient to identify suitable community activities or services and supports them to take the first step — making a referral, accompanying them if needed, or simply providing encouragement and follow-up over subsequent sessions. Link workers typically support a person across 6–12 sessions over a period of three months, and hold annual caseloads of up to 200–250 people depending on complexity (NHS England).

From 2022 onwards, providing access to social prescribing became a formal mandate for every PCN in England as part of the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES). Even after the original five-year PCN contract expired in 2024, social prescribing remains a contractual requirement under the 2025/26 DES (NHS England, Social Prescribing Reference Guide).

Referrals do not have to come only from clinicians. Self-referrals and referrals from voluntary sector organisations, housing teams, and other community partners are all part of the model — widening the routes into support beyond the GP surgery door.

By the numbers: Over 1.3 million people were referred to social prescribing link workers in 2023 alone — exceeding the NHS Long Term Plan's original five-year target of 900,000 referrals by up to 52%. (The Lancet Public Health, 2025)

The NHS Long Term Plan, NASP, and the Growth of the Workforce

Social prescribing is not new — community-based referral models have existed for decades in various forms — but the NHS Long Term Plan (2019) gave it a national mandate and dedicated funding for the first time in England. The Plan committed to embedding link workers within primary care through PCNs, with an initial target of 1,000 link workers in place by 2020/21. Funding came through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), which reimburses PCNs for the cost of employing a range of non-clinical roles including link workers.

The National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) was established in October 2019 as part of the same policy moment. NASP is a national charity whose purpose is to ensure social prescribing thrives across the country. It builds the evidence base, supports training and workforce development, promotes international collaboration, and runs programmes including the Green Social Prescribing pilot and the Power of Music Fund (NASP, About Us). NASP works with nearly 300 academics and experts worldwide and has published 15 thematic evidence reviews.

The workforce has grown substantially since 2019. There are now more than 3,600 social prescribing link workers in post in GP practices across England (NASP Annual Report 2023–24). The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets a further target of 6,500 link workers by the end of the decade and 9,000 by 2036/37 (NASP, The Future of Social Prescribing in England).

The 2025 NASP link worker survey, which gathered responses from more than 400 link workers across England, found that 98% believe their work positively impacts the people they support, and 85% would recommend the role to others — a workforce that is highly motivated despite the pressures of peripatetic working across multiple GP practices (NASP Link Worker Survey 2025).

By the numbers: A 2025 study in the British Journal of General Practice found that patients referred to social prescribing subsequently had 1.13 fewer GP appointments per quarter. (BJGP, 2025)

Finding appropriate community services is central to the link worker role, and doing it well requires a reliable, up-to-date service directory. Plinth's AI Service Directory uses natural language matching to help link workers identify relevant local services based on a person's specific needs — reducing the time spent searching and increasing confidence that the match is right.

What Social Prescribing Addresses — and What It Does Not

Social prescribing is designed for people whose primary needs are social, emotional, or practical rather than clinical. Common presenting issues include loneliness and social isolation, financial problems and debt, difficulties with housing, low physical activity, and poor mental wellbeing that does not meet the threshold for specialist services.

It is not a substitute for medical treatment. Someone presenting with symptoms requiring diagnosis and clinical management should receive that care. Social prescribing works alongside clinical pathways — addressing the factors that a GP appointment is not designed to solve, and that often underlie repeated presentations at primary care.

The population it reaches is broad. NHS data show that representation from deprived communities in social prescribing referrals grew from 23% to 42% between 2017 and 2023, though disparities in uptake by age, sex, and ethnicity remain an active area of concern (The Lancet Public Health, 2025). Commissioners and link workers are increasingly focused on ensuring the model reaches those with the greatest social need, not just those who find it easiest to engage.

Social prescribing also generates evidence about unmet need. The patterns of referral that emerge — which services are most in demand, which postcodes generate most referrals, which groups are under-represented — give commissioners and local authorities valuable intelligence about gaps in community provision. This is one reason why impact reporting and structured outcome measurement matter: the data link workers capture has uses beyond the individual case.

By the numbers: Evaluations across nine local health systems in England, summarised by NASP in November 2024, found that social prescribing can substantially reduce pressure on the NHS — including a 42.2% reduction in GP appointments among 1,751 patients in Tameside and Glossop. (NASP, Impact of Social Prescribing on Health Service Use and Costs, 2024)

Managing caseloads across multiple GP surgeries, tracking referrals to community organisations, and recording wellbeing outcomes all require more than a spreadsheet. Plinth's case management tools are designed for the specific workflow of social prescribing link workers — from receiving a GP referral through to outcome measurement and reporting to PCN leads.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who funds social prescribing link workers?

Link workers employed within PCNs are primarily funded through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), which is part of the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service. Under the ARRS, NHS England reimburses PCNs for a set proportion of the salary costs of employing approved additional roles, including link workers. Some link workers are employed by voluntary sector organisations contracted to deliver social prescribing on behalf of a PCN or Integrated Care Board (ICB). Funding arrangements vary locally, and many services draw on a mix of NHS contract income, local authority commissioning, and charitable grants.

What outcomes does social prescribing measure?

NHS England's Social Prescribing Common Outcomes Framework recommends the ONS-4 personal wellbeing questions (covering life satisfaction, happiness, anxiety, and sense of worthwhileness) as a minimum standard for all social prescribing services, alongside the Patient Activation Measure (PAM). Many services also collect the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS). These measures are taken at the start and end of a person's engagement to assess change. Plinth's Surveys feature includes validated wellbeing outcome measures pre-configured and ready to use, removing the need to build them manually.

How does social prescribing relate to commissioning?

Social prescribing services are commissioned — that is, formally specified and funded — by PCNs, ICBs, and sometimes local authorities. The link worker role sits within primary care commissioning arrangements, but the community services that link workers connect people to are often delivered by the voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) sector. This means social prescribing sits at the intersection of NHS commissioning and voluntary sector delivery. Understanding how commissioning works is helpful context for anyone working in or alongside a social prescribing service — see What Is Commissioning? for a fuller explanation.

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Published by the Plinth Team. Last updated 21 February 2026.