Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support (a) voluntary and (b) community sector organisations delivering social prescribing services.

The Government has underlined its commitment to taking a preventive approach to address health inequalities. We are determined to improve people’s physical and mental health, to support them to live longer and healthier lives, and we recognise the role that social prescribing can play in this.  The Department funds the workforce through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, including social prescribing link workers in primary care. In March 2025, the Department agreed to a further year of grant funding for the National Academy for Social Prescribing, securing £1.5 million to advance and expand social prescribing.

The Health Mission specifically cites social prescribing as one of the services that can form part of the multi-disciplinary teams in neighbourhood health centres. The Neighbourhood Health Service has six initial core components, and social prescribing directly relates to both population health management and neighbourhood multidisciplinary teams.

We will soon launch the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, which will support systems across the country to test new ways of working, share learning, and scale what works, making neighbourhood health the norm, not the exception.

The Department has commissioned national research into different workstreams for social prescribing.