Resources and Events – Case Studies

Customer Spotlight – United Welsh: December 2019

About The Project

In December 2019, Elemental focused on United Welsh and their incredible social prescribing service, Wellbeing 4u. Not only was the Wellbeing 4U service commended for their partnership with Cardiff and Vale Health Board winning the ‘Working With Other Sectors’ prize in the Welsh Housing Awards, but they released their most recent Impact Statement, which contained some pretty impressive impact evidence, trailblazing best practice examples, and inspiring patient case studies.

ABOUT WELLBEING 4U

Wellbeing 4U is a social prescribing service that’s currently run in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales by the Thrive team at United Welsh. The service supports citizens to be responsible for their own health by placing them at the centre of their care, promoting independence and personal responsibility.

As well as offering one-to-one support and signposting, the Wellbeing 4U service also provides health programmes and courses through The Healthful Network.

Wellbeing 4U supports patients who are registered with 37 GP surgeries across Cardiff and Vale. Referrals come from GPs, practice staff, patients and other community organisations.

SCALING SOCIAL PRESCRIBING AND ITS IMPACT

From March 2016 until March 2019 the Wellbeing 4u service has:

3,831

Received 3,831 referrals from the health sector and third sector to support patients

3,374

saw 3,374 patients to provide one-to-one support

3,880

Signposted 3,880 patients to further health and wellbeing support

1,581

Received feedback from 1,581 patients on their activities

5 CLUSTERS

Worked in 5 of 9 Cardiff and Vale clusters

319

Welcomed 319 participants to the healthful network

470

Provided health advice for over 470 community engagement events

400

Supported over 400 people to have their immunisations and screenings

IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF THE SERVICE, WELLBEING 4U HAS PROVIDED OVER 12,000 SESSIONS AS ALTERNATIVES TO GP APPOINTMENTS. WITH EACH GP APPOINTMENT COSTING £31 ACCORDING TO THE BMA IN 2018, THE SERVICE HAS SAVED APPROXIMATELY £372,620 OF APPOINTMENT TIME.

The most common referrals at Wellbeing 4U were for mental, social and physical wellbeing, harmful behaviours, immunisation, screening advice and frequent GP attenders.

A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE

Working in effective, mutually beneficial partnerships is at the heart of the Wellbeing 4U service and is detrimental to its success. The collaboration helped to enhance the patient experience, grow community assets and identify gaps in service provision, providing value for money.

Wellbeing 4U had collaboration deeply embedded in the core of their values and social prescribing model. Currently they:

Collaborate with Public Health specialist teams such as dietetics to reduce the risks of long-term health conditions
Promote partners and increase take up of their services
Work with over 150 third sector organisations and community groups
Share resources to maximise assets and reduce costs
Work together to overcome barriers to accessing services

“We decided to go with Elemental as a service provider because they provide an established platform with evidence of partnership working and supporting outcomes. The main reasons to utilise this platform is to aid our service in demonstrating outcomes from our signposting, assisting reporting and streamlining our referral pathway.’’ Emma South, Health and Wellbeing Lead, United Welsh

DEMONSTRATING OUTCOMES THROUGH DIGITAL

Evaluation is critical to service delivery at Wellbeing 4U which meant the team continuously improve patient journeys and effectively report on service outcomes.

Recognising the benefits of digital and how it can enhance service delivery and evaluation, Wellbeing 4U used Elemental’s Core social prescribing platform to streamline referrals, track their impact and aggregate outcome reports.

In addition to MI and MECC measuring tools, Wellbeing 4U use ONS questions for wellbeing comparison groups from local ONS survey findings and demographic surveys to measure positive change in wellbeing for patients and to identify provision gaps.

“We’re so proud to be working in partnership with United Welsh and the Wellbeing 4U team who are contributing massively to a healthier Wales. Their core values and passion for social prescribing and healthier communities is testament to their success and the impact the Wellbeing 4U service is making. We can’t wait to see what’s to come in the future and once again would like to congratulate the entire team on another fantastic year.” Jennifer Neff, Co-founder & Co- CEO Elemental Software