Social Mirror for Social Prescribing
Issue: Social connections influence our wellbeing and life outcomes: isolation is linked to
health complaints ranging from depression (costing the economy £8 billion annually), to
cardiovascular disease. Healthcare practitioners are charged with addressing such problems
through social prescribing but its use is patchy.
Background: Social prescribing - the linking of patients to social resources in their
community - expands the options available to patients and health practitioners when dealing
with problems that have their roots in socioeconomic deprivation, lifestyle choices and
psychosocial issues. Current evidence shows positive health impacts, but the economic case
for social prescribing is thin. There is a lack of support for health practitioners to engage with
the social prescribing agenda: how can busy health practitioners know what is available in
the community; how can the evidence be better collated?
Social Mirror is an easy to use tool enabling GPs and others to use social prescribing. It can
be used on a tablet or website and will allow users to measure, visualise, and positively
change their social connections. Based on patient responses to questions on health,
lifestyles, interests and social connections, Social Mirror will analyse information and suggest
social prescriptions. It will provide information about a range of local community resources
and opportunities, so avoiding reliance on individual practitioners’ knowledge or ability as
motivational interviewers. It will generate evidence on costs saving for the NHS in terms of
reduced GP appointments and medical prescriptions.
Key Considerations: Social prescribing pilots show that GPs and patients need: prompts to
consider and use social prescribing; easy and timely ways of identifying and referring to
community resources; and options that offer sustainable social interaction.
Social Mirror offers a step-change from existing work in this area, while building on lessons
so far. The last decade has seen experiments in social prescribing which, generally, have
lacked sustainability and transferable frameworks: they have finished when funding ran out,
and have relied on the skills of individual practitioners as conveners, motivational
interviewers and sign-posters to local areas. With the move to public health through local
authorities, the rise of GP commissioning, and reduced finances, the need for joined up,
sustainable projects is great. Social Mirror’s focus is on a locally specific digital tool, rather
than on the particular aptitude and inclinations of individual practitioners. It makes use of
advances in network science and digital technologies for health gains and aids health
practitioners in looking for more cost effective ways of achieving outcomes.
Social Mirror provides a unique opportunity to make an economic case for social prescribing:
the digital tool provides a means of collecting the data in a secure and rigorous way, and the
project has a built in evaluation process which should help ensure a successful proof of
concept and the setting of best practise standards.
Next Steps: The RSA has secured funding from the Nominet Trust to run a proof-of-concept
pilot for 12 months in Knowle West. We will be building on our existing research in the area
and working with local groups to design what a Knowle West specific tool would look like.
We are interested in testing the effectiveness of Social Mirror when used as social
prescribing aid with: GPs, health visitors, and as a self-administered tool. We are recruiting
health practitioners who would be interested in participating in the pilot, and in contributing
to our eventual written and audio-visuals outputs about the findings.