Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to encourage the use of social prescribing by GPs; and what recent discussions has he had with NHS Clinical Commissioners on social prescribing.

The Department is committed to the development of social prescribing due to both its ability to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals and its potential to take pressure off general practice and other services.

NHS England is encouraging general practitioners (GPs) to support social prescribing as one of the ten high impact actions to release capacity set out in the GP Forward View. NHS England is working with federations of GPs to increase support for social prescribing. Regional social prescribing networks spread good practice and innovation in social prescribing across England, providing support for clinical commissioning group commissioners and practitioners.

There have been no recent discussions between the Secretary of State and NHS Clinical Commissioners on social prescribing. NHS England’s Clinical Lead for Social Prescribing met Julie Wood, CEO of NHS Clinical Commissioners in October 2017 to discuss how to raise the profile of social prescribing amongst commissioners.