Social Prescribing Link Worker Out of Hours

**15 hours - all week**
**Social Prescribing & Lifestyle Services**
**Birmingham**

**OVERVIEW**

**Salary**:£25,000 per annum (to include £1020 expenses) Full Time Equivalent
**Contract type**:Permanent
**Hours**:Full time 15 hours per week Monday to Friday evenings & Saturday daytime
**Location**:East Birmingham GP Practices in the Shard End, Bromford & Hodge Hill, Kitts Green, Castle Vale and Sheldon with a central base in Tyseley Birmingham.

The Active Wellbeing Society is a community benefit society and cooperative working to develop healthy, happy communities living active and connected lives.

Our vision is for a society where people have the autonomy, capacity, resources and skills to become the architects of their destiny; where our wellbeing is recognised as being bound up in our collective responsibility to and dependency on each other; and where all of us feel empowered as agents of social change to make a difference - whether at an individual level or more widely.

By working collaboratively with communities, we aim to bring about sustainable change on a social, environmental and economic level; to do the social knitting required to create more robust and more resilient communities and to support communities to identify, mitigate and remove the barriers that prevent them from living active and connected lives.

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a wider Link Worker team which covers 11 other Primary care Networks (PCN), partnering with Our Health Partnership - one of the largest GP partnerships in the UK. The post holder will benefit from peer support, as well as being able to work alongside physical and social activity delivery staff, the Big Feed Programme, and community development teams to deliver the highest quality service to practices and patients. The Social Prescribing team are also supported by the Knowledge and Insight function within The Active Wellbeing Society to assist with data capture and impact reporting design.

**MAIN DUTIES**

1. Receiving referrals, assessing, supporting and signposting patients across the PCN to improve their wellbeing.
2. Build relationships and work proactively with health care professionals to stimulate referrals and provide timely feedback on the support provided to individuals by promoting the extended access service with the PCN GP practices and community settings.
3. Working with PCNs and Practices to co-design a social prescribing extended access service that meets the needs of the patients and the practices. This will include drop in services, workshops and individual appointments.
4. Working as part of a Active Wellbeing Society/PCN Link Worker team across the City to provide the highest quality service to patients while sharing ideas, approaches to service delivery, knowledge and peer support to colleagues.
5. You will be providing a holistic assessment and co-designing a personalised social prescription to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for individuals with a longer-term outcome of reducing the number of clinical /medical interventions
6. The role will require managing and prioritising your caseload, following the needs, priorities and any urgent support required by patients.
7. Supporting patients to take steps that improve their mental and physical wellbeing, as well as assisting them to access other services
8. Liaise with the line manager to develop relationships with multi-disciplinary professionals who are involved in a person’s care, ensuring a smooth and coordinated approach, especially where multiple agencies are involved
9. Identify when a person’s needs are beyond the scope of the Social Prescribing Link Worker role and refer them to the relevant health professional and/or referral source
10.Remain the point of contact throughout the individual’s social prescription, including follow-ups to ensure outcomes are being achieved and individuals are provided with ongoing support as required
11. Capture key information from individuals through follow-up calls enabling tracking of the impact of social prescribing on their health and wellbeing Encourage people to provide feedback and to share their stories about the impact of social prescribing on their lives
12. Ensure the patient is supported, have basic safeguarding processes for vulnerable individuals and can provide opportunities for the person to develop friendships, a sense of belonging, and build knowledge, skills and confidence

**Community-based support**
1. Have a detailed or develop an understanding of services offered within the PCN and in the local community to facilitate appropriate signposting and referrals
2. Where appropriate, refer and signpost people to community groups, activities, and statutory services to meet their urgent needs and ensure individuals are engaged with their local community
3. Develop and maintain effective working relationships within the PCN community

**Monitoring and reporting**
1. Maintain systems to keep accurate record