Social prescribing has been successfully rolled out across England since 2019, with millions of people referred to link workers and a growing evidence base to show the positive impact. As the NHS enters a new phase, it will be crucial to use data and evidence to develop and target social prescribing services further, evaluate the benefits and inform investment.
To that end, the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) and the Social Biobehavioural Research Group at UCL have formed a partnership to develop a National Centre for Social Prescribing Data and Analysis. This fulfils one of the key recommendations from NASP’s 2023 report, The Future of Social Prescribing in England. The partnership combines NASP’s reach into communities and our expertise in policy development and advocacy with UCL’s world leading research and analysis capability.
The aims of the centre are to:
1. Produce and promote a series of seminal reports on the impact of social prescribing across the English population, using large datasets from multiple sources including Access Elemental and the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), to demonstrate impacts through innovative methods of data analysis and utilise these for the national strategic development of social prescribing.
2. To co-design with key stakeholders a long-term national data and analysis strategy for social prescribing, to create a step change in the quality, depth and breadth of analysis required to inform future policy, investment and practice.
This National Centre is key to transforming timely access to high quality, robust data required to inform many of the changes underpinning the Government's shift to a more pro-active, sustainable health service focused on health prevention delivered with and through the community. The Centre's work will build on the growing body of evidence around social prescribing, and NASP’s ambition for a high quality data-driven system, ensuring timely and coordinated analysis of social prescribing data within a long term strategic plan.
Work in 2025/26 will commence with the design and development of a long-term data and analysis strategy for social prescribing, alongside the sharing of new evidence on the scale of social prescribing across England.
The Centre at UCL will directed by Professor Daisy Fancourt (Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology) with Deputy Directors Dr Feifei Bu (Principal Research Fellow in Epidemiology & Statistics) and Dr Dan Hayes (Senior Research Fellow in Social Science).
