The National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) recently hosted a roundtable on how social prescribing can support people with psychosis, to feed into NHS England’s Modern Service Framework for Severe Mental Illness. The framework will aim to support people living with severe mental illness to live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives through high quality, integrated and equitable care. Debs Teale, an independent consultant and facilitator, launched the session by sharing how she has been viewed by the health care system as a patient, during her childhood and as adult.
Debs said that doctors focused on giving her labels and medication, and that she was told she would always be ill, medicated and would never work. However, she saw a leaflet for an art class, joined the group, and found that art was able to slow down her racing thoughts, give her the tools to take control of her life and ultimately change the path that had been set out for her by health professionals.
Debs stressed the importance of services seeing people as individuals and enabling them to explore what a good life would look like – rather than taking a deficit approach.
What is the evidence that social prescribing can support people living with psychosis?
The roundtable heard that there is substantial research on the benefits of various activities for people with psychosis, but less evidence about how Social Prescribing Link Workers and similar roles can connect people to those activities.
Dr Rachel Quinn, Executive Director of Strategy and Partnerships at NASP, highlighted that while social prescribing is aimed at people with mild mental health needs, NASP surveys suggest that more than three quarters of link workers have supported people with severe mental illness.
Dr Alexandra Caufield, honorary researcher at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences University of Oxford, presented a recent evidence review on how the activities, that social prescribing can connect people with, can support people at increased risk of experiencing and recovering from psychosis. The review looked at the evidence related to nature and gardening, arts therapy and other areas.
Dr Alex Burton, Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Psychiatry and Mental Health at Queen Mary University of London, presented findings from current research on how social prescribing is reaching people with severe mental illness.
This included exploring what link workers need - such as access to patient information and integration with multi-disciplinary teams. Dr Burton also talked about developing a training programme for Social Prescribing Link Workers to support people with severe mental illness and testing this in a feasibility study. This study is currently in set up.
Dr Nikos Stefanis, Professor of Psychiatry at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, spoke about a Randomised Control Trial into the impact of the arts on people with mental health conditions, including schizophrenia.
Exposure to arts over three months – including theatre, dance, visual arts, music, cinema and museums – led to improvements in wellbeing, and reductions in depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Arts on Prescription has now been officially recognised as part of Greece’s national legal and public health framework.
What does good psychosis care look like?
The second half of the roundtable focused on what good care would look like for people living with psychosis, through early intervention, treatment and recovery. Attendees discussed the need for:
· Holistic, whole-person care
· Easy access and no wrong door
· Person-centred and individualised approaches
· Empowerment and agency
· Safe, trusting and non-stigmatising environments
· Trauma-informed and power-aware practice
· Early proactive and responsive support
· Relationship-focused and connected care
· Time, listening and understanding
· Hope, recovery and identity
Attendees discussed the need for social prescribing professionals to be part of a joined-up system with clear pathways for patients, and with clarity around roles and responsibilities. Attendees also stressed the need for good quality training and supervision to support staff confidence and capacity.
To establish joined-up social prescribing systems for psychosis, there would be a need for:
· Services to be less risk-averse and explore how to support staff trying something different/creative
· Consideration of accessibility issues for people with psychosis – including a focus on digital exclusion and the risk of people being overwhelmed by multiple professionals contacting them
· Sustainable funding for community groups to follow referrals.
Participants highlighted that services were set up around a biomedical model of care, often following models set up for physical health, and stressed the importance of understanding an individual’s social context and support network for care to be holistic, individualised and personalised. Services needed to be asset not deficit-focused and service targets should focus on capturing long-term quality of care, ensuring that outcomes are meaningful.
Unhelpful assumptions about psychosis
Attendees believed that there were often assumptions and stereotypes about people with psychosis, sometimes due to inaccurate portrayals in the media, which could lead to shame and judgement, and contribute to the focus on risks.
Involving Communities
Many attendees highlighted the need for services to more connected to people’s communities and to co-design services with communities. The government’s proposed shift to Neighbourhood Health will hopefully help with this.
Next steps
The roundtable ended by asking attendees to consider what actions needed to be taken by different stakeholders.
At the roundtable, there was a call for national bodies to build a strong policy argument, for integrating social prescribing into psychosis care and for creative health approaches based on the emerging evidence. The need to set appropriate targets and measures, and procure appropriate training for staff were also highlighted.
Commenting on the roundtable, Dr Rachel Quinn said:
“The roundtable demonstrated the potential for social prescribing to support people living with psychosis, alongside other forms of care. It is important the learning and evidence feeds into real changes in the health care system, enabling care to be holistic, person centred and focussed on what a good life can look like”.
Have your say
NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care have recently opened a call for proposals on interventions and areas of action that will support the development of the Modern Service Framework on severe mental illness.
This provides an opportunity to articulate the evidence for social prescribing, including how it can help person-centred care, improve social connectedness and give people more autonomy and choice over their future.
The deadline for providing a submission is by 5pm on Thursday 28 May 2026. If you have any questions about this call for proposals, please contact the SMI MSF team at: [email protected]
Links to further research:
If you have any questions about the NASP roundtable please contact [email protected] for more information
