Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will work with NHS England to add measures of loneliness to the NHS England Outcomes Framework for social prescribing.

As social prescribing is locally driven, different approaches to evaluation and the measurement of outcomes have emerged across England. To encourage consistent data gathering and reporting of outcomes, NHS England has worked with a wide range of stakeholders to develop a Common Outcomes Framework for measuring the impact of social prescribing. Working with a wide range of stakeholders, a consensus has been built for all social prescribing connector schemes to measure a number of outcomes, including impact on the person. This includes how a person’s wellbeing has improved, whether they are less lonely and whether they feel more in control and have a better quality of life.

More information on the Common Outcomes Framework can be found in ‘Social prescribing and community-based support Summary guide’, published by NHS England in January 2019 which is available at the following link:

www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/social-prescribing-community-based-support-summary-guide.pdf