Enable Leisure and Culture partner with Elemental in a bid to enrich lives and strengthen communities

IN A BID TO ENSURE PEOPLE IN WANDSWORTH CAN LIVE HAPPIER AND HEALTHIER LIVES THROUGH COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES AND INCREASE COLLABORATION ACROSS SECTORS, ENABLE LEISURE AND CULTURE (ENABLE) IS LAUNCHING A BOROUGH WIDE SOCIAL PRESCRIBING SERVICE UNDERPINNED BY ELEMENTAL’S CORE SOCIAL PRESCRIBING PLATFORM.

AN OPPORTUNITY TO SCALE THE SUCCESS OF THE PILOT

The new service will allow patients to be referred into social prescribing programmes by GPs, with plans to allow patients to self-refer themselves into activities and programmes in the future. The service is funded by Wandsworth Clinical Commissioning Group and follows a successful  pilot programme in Merton which dramatically improved patient  health and wellbeing.

Merton CCG Council set out to test a model of social prescribing connecting medical care with local voluntary and community resources. 

The independent evaluation of the pilot found in the first year that 77 percent of patients said it had improved their wellbeing; 33 percent fewer GP appointments were needed as a result of the scheme; and hospital visits were reduced by 50 percent.

THE MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE NEW SOCIAL PRESCRIBING SERVICE ARE TO:

•  Support patients to identify ways in which they can help improve their own health and wellbeing, linking them with community services and opportunities to help them achieve this
•  Improve social and clinical outcomes for people with long-term conditions and their carers
•  Make more cost-effective use of NHS and social care resources
•  Enable clinicians to refer patients to a range of local, non-clinical services to improve their health and well-being
•  Address people’s needs in a holistic way and facilitate access to the right place or activity, first time
•  Easily manage everything from within our Core social prescribing platform, meaning a seamless and simplified user journey
•  Contribute to building a more supportive, inclusive and resilient community

“Right now, we’re very excited about getting started! We’ve begun to see our first few patients and are now live in all practices. It’s been discussed in Wandsworth for a long time now, so to be this close to starting is fantastic news. Longer term, I’m really excited about how social prescribing can shift the way the two sectors work together. Previously, it’s felt like only connected, funded, or fortunate organisations have been able to successfully engage with primary care – and even then it’s often inconsistent across practices and boroughs. I’m hoping that social prescribing can demonstrate the value of VCS organisations to primary care, and eventually to patients too. We’ve already had some exciting conversations about the potential in the programme for year two if we get further funding for more Link Workers that can be more specialist, and really begin meeting local need.” Nick Atkins, Head of Health & Wellbeing, Enable Leisure and Culture

SUPPORTING NEWLY ESTABLISHED PRIMARY CARE NETWORKS

Thanks to partnering with Elemental, Enable’s borough-wide social prescribing service will be supported and underpinned by our Core platform meaning health professionals in each of the seven Primary Care Networks in Wandsworth can:

•  Connect patients to suitable social prescribing programmes in their communities more effectively via our EMIS connector within EMIS Web
•  Evaluate the impact of a referral for an individual or across a community cohort
•  Contribute to achieving public health objectives
•  Strengthen partnerships between PCNs, VCSE organisations and Adult Social Care
•  Reduce avoidable GP appointments, saving time, cost and resources
•  Easily manage everything from within our Core social prescribing platform, meaning a seamless and simplified user journey
•  Report on and evidence, impact and uptake

A PROACTIVE APPROACH TO SUPPORTING PRIMARY CARE NETWORKS

By taking a proactive approach to managing population care and supporting their newly formed Primary Care Networks through social prescribing, Wandsworth CCG and Wandsworth Council will strengthen the footprint around which integrated community based teams will develop in a bid to tackle and treat the wider health needs of their local communities.

Healthcare professionals and providers throughout Wandsworth will also be able to evidence their investment and thanks to Elemental’s Core social prescribing platform, at a network, borough and hub level, they can also report on:

•  PROGRESSDashboard overview of resident’s health journeys on dial and graph. Filters include, gender, age, hub, region and cohort groups
•  ATTENDANCE/IMPACTAttendance, activity, health journey – impact on a graph and broken down into figures for each monitoring tool
•  INTERVENTION ACTIVITYList of interventions and attendance against these
•  USER CASE ACTIVITYMonthly breakdown of number of referrals received, case status and interventions prescribed.
•  ACTIVITYHow many referrals received by referral source and agent, Reason for referral, Number of interventions prescribed, what interventions these were and by domain. At a glance, see how many patients are active, completed, discharged or waiting and sub category for these
•  PROGRAMMESReporting against target beneficiaries and interventions against programmes.

EMBRACING THE POWER OF DIGITAL

By embracing the power of digital and recognising the benefits associated with digital social prescribing in particular, Enable will be able to maximise the impact and investment in community health and wellbeing and enable partners in the VCSE sector to empower, support and connect more patients and citizens to engage in personalised programmes in their communities. Elemental’s Core platform includes a range of features including:

•  REFERRAL GENERATIONVia a browser on a desktop, mobile device or within specific Clinical Systems. Referrals can be made within 45 seconds and sent instantly. Referrals are tracked, viewed and analysed
•  HEALTH RISK ANALYSISHelping patients to better understand their health risk and track their health risk status using validated monitoring tools
•  SOCIAL PRESCRIPTION GENERATORReferring patients to range of quality assured community based lifestyle interventions
•  ATTENDANCE TRACKERFacilitate, track, and measure attendance rates of patients across multiple community based lifestyle intervention providers
•  HEALTH IMPACT MEASUREMENTTrack a patient’s health and wellbeing improvement journey in real time and in line with their identified health risks
•  ENHANCED DIRECTORY OF SERVICES -Enables accredited VCSE providers to create and edit database of venues and interventions as well as allocate appropriate facilitators
•  AGGREGATE REPORTSProvides accurate comparative epidemiological information to facilitate greater reporting on the effectiveness and efficiency of programmes and interventions
•  INTEROPERABILITYVia our (rest) API, connect with existing platforms to push and pull specific data sets relating to population health
•  SELF-REFERRAL MODULEPatients will be able to self-refer and explore activities to promote and improve their health and wellbeing

“Having met Nick Atkins from Enable earlier this year and speaking to him about the amazing community work they were already doing in Wandsworth, I just knew that the passion he and the entire team shared for social prescribing and the benefits for their communities, that this was something we had to support them with on a larger scale. We couldn’t think of a better organisation to lead and implement this new social prescribing services for citizens across Wandsworth, community wellbeing and collaboration is embedded in their service delivery and the very core of their vision. We can’t wait until they can begin reporting on the impacts that this service is undoubtedly going to make. ” Jennifer Neff, Elemental CEO and Co-Founder

FIND OUT MORE

If you’d like to find out how Elemental can enhance and scale the impact of social prescribing in your communities, get in touch or pop your details below to request a 1-1 online demo.