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. 2024 Oct 21;11(4):100199.
doi: 10.1016/j.fhj.2024.100199. eCollection 2024 Dec.

Conceptualising social prescribing in urgent and emergency care

Matthew Cooper  1 , Hamde Nazar  1 , Darren Flynn  2 , Christoph Redelsteiner  3 , Gina Agarwal  4 , Jason Scott  2
Affiliations

Conceptualising social prescribing in urgent and emergency care

Matthew Cooper et al. Future Healthc J. .

Abstract

This paper examines how social prescribing could be implemented across urgent and emergency care (UEC) systems by examining potentially viable referral pathways and the salient challenges and barriers to implementation. In doing so, we consider a range of services involved in the broader UEC system to include emergency departments, emergency medical (ambulance) services, out-of-hours general practitioners, telephony-based urgent care, urgent treatment centres, and community pharmacy. This paper aims to encourage further debate on this topic, including around the nuances of UEC services that may influence implementation of social prescribing.

Keywords: Healthcare; Social care; Social prescribing; Urgent and emergency care.

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Conflict of interest statement

Matthew Cooper and Hamde Nazar are funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Newcastle Patient Safety Research Collaborative (PSRC). Gina Agarwal is supported by a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair and by the Department of Family Medicine as the McMaster Levitt Scholar. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig. 1
Typical social prescribing pathway. Blue shaded boxes – self-referral pathway. Green shaded boxes – primary care pathway. Orange shaded boxes -social prescribing pathway. Yellow shaded box – third sector.
Fig 2
Fig. 2
Conceptual social prescribing model in urgent and emergency care. Blue shaded boxes – self-referral pathway. Green shaded boxes – primary care pathway. Red shaded boxes – urgent and emergency care pathway Orange shaded boxes -social prescribing pathway. Yellow shaded box – third sector.
Fig 3
Fig. 3
Conceptual overview of the UEC link worker as a triage option. Green – non-emergency walk-in/telehealth. Yellow – non-emergency minor injuries and primary care doctor. Orange – emergency minor/major health need. Red – critical or life-threating health need.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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