Employees expecting to be prescribed anti-inflammatories for back pain might be surprised to find themselves being sent to gardening club. But non-medical referrals to support in the community – known as ‘social prescribing’ – is growing in popularity.
The idea is that many health and wellbeing issues can be improved with social, rather than medical, interventions. Such as low mood due to spending too much time isolated from others, or back pain due to lack of movement. Making a ‘prescription’ to join a baking, gardening, walking, football or crafting volunteer group, is an effective alternative to pills.
Employers, senior politicians and the NHS are all embracing this approach with the launch of the College of Medicine’s Beyond Pills campaign. So here are six ways to introduce social prescribing to boost the health of your people and further your organisation’s ESG goals.
1. Think about what your people need
As with any workplace health and wellbeing initiative, the best place to start is by looking at what your people need. What health issues are causing them to go off sick or hindering their ability to perform at work? What underlying health issues are they prone to? Are they feeling fatigued, suffering from burnout or struggling with neck and back pain? Would they benefit from doing something relaxing and soulful, or becoming more active?
2. Identify appropriate community groups
Once you’ve established what your people need, consider what sort of activities they might want to engage with, bearing in mind where they’re based. Local councils will probably have a social prescribing page if you google this. If they aren’t offering much, consider supporting a local charity or setting up your own group. For example, a workplace walking group or inter-company football club. Or, if your workplace has a garden, perhaps an allotment club.
3. Get a medical professional onboard
4. Refer employees who would benefit
5. Share success stories
Capture testimonials from people who have been helped to recover. Include any data about positive outcome measures to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. Be this clinical data on improvement in symptoms or a patient reported outcome measures (PROM) survey.
Share these stories with other employees to inspire them to also come forward for support. Plus calculate any absence or cost savings, compared to waiting for an NHS GP referral or making a health insurance claim, to make the case for the approach to the business.
6. Be flexible

Find out how to incorporate social prescribing into your health and wellbeing strategy with a one-to-one workshop.
How can PAM Physio Solutions Help?
Workforce analytics
Absence case management
Social prescribing
Physiotherapy information line (PhIL)
For more information about how we can support your people to stay in work or recover:
Visit: www.pamphysiosolutions.co.uk
Email: pamphysiosolutions@people-am.com
Call: 01925 989741