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New pilot sees Social Prescribers join Emergency Department to improve health outcomes
A pilot which sees patients receiving optional health and wellbeing support alongside their medical treatment has launched in the Emergency Department at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust.
A team of Social Prescribing Link Workers are on-hand to help people access advice and support services in the community, with the aim of improving people’s overall health and wellbeing.
This could be help with accessing: debt, housing or employment support; learning a new skills or trying a new hobby to combat loneliness; or lifestyle support to help with aspects such as: low mood; stopping smoking or drinking, or how to get more exercise.
Social Prescribing is used as a preventative measure, to improve people’s quality of life and emotional wellbeing, which longer-term may reduce the need for people to use some NHS services if their issues can be solved earlier.
Anyone from the age of 11 and above can access the Social Prescribers by approaching one of the team in the department, who wear an orange t-shirt with the words “Social Prescribing Link Worker” written on the back. People can also ask the doctor or nurse who is treating them, to contact the team on their behalf.
Anna Wetherburn, a Social Prescriber Link Worker at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “In the Emergency Department we will be talking to patients who are waiting in the department, to see if they are interested in joining any community groups.
“Sometimes there are people in the department who are experiencing loneliness and isolation and so we want to find those people, talk to them, see what their interests are, so whether there are any things in their community, that they are not aware of or that they are not sure how to get into and to support them to access those things.
“We will also help people who are experiencing issues with housing, benefits and debt.”
Lucy, a Social Prescriber Link Worker at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “I am really looking forward to and I am proud to be a part of this. It is going to be helpful to the staff.”
Dr Jo Ollerton, a consultant in Urgent and Emergency Care at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “We’ve all heard how busy we are in the Emergency Department and this certainly isn’t something that we want to make too complicated.
“We want all of the staff in the Emergency Department to know that all of the options are out there for our patients and the Social Prescribers are going to be so useful in helping us with this.
“We can point patients to them and they will know all of the contacts and support services that are out in the community that they can link to.”
The Social Prescriber Link Workers are in the Emergency Department from 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. The team work in partnership with charities Framework, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Age UK and Redthread.