Social Prescribing Link Worker

**Dashwood Primary Care Network**

**Salary**:In the range of £25,000 - £27,000 dependant on experience

**Working hours**:Full Time 37.5 hours

NHS Pension

33 days annual leave inclusive of bank holidays

Employee Assistance Programme 24/7 Support

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Social Prescribing Link Worker who is passionate about empowering people to take control of their health to join our existing developing team within our PCN, we provide high quality support to our patients and are looking for an enthusiastic, empathetic individual to join the team to support us in achieving this.

Social prescribing empowers people to take control of their health and wellbeing through referral to ‘link workers’ who give time, focus on ‘what matters to me’ and take a holistic approach to an individual’s health and wellbeing, connecting people to community groups and statutory services for practical and emotional support. Link workers also support existing groups to be accessible and sustainable and help people to start new community groups, working collaboratively with all local partners. Social prescribing link workers (SPLW) will work as a key part of the primary care network (PCN) multi-disciplinary team.

**Job responsibilities**

Promoting social prescribing, its role in self-management, and the wider determinants of health.

Build relationships with key staff in GP practices within the local Primary Care Network (PCN), attending relevant meetings, becoming part of the wider network team, providing reports including monitoring and evaluation including general feedback on social prescribing.

Be proactive in developing strong links with all local agencies to encourage referrals, recognising what they need to be confident in the service to make appropriate referrals.

Work in partnership with all local agencies to raise awareness of social prescribing and how partnership working can reduce pressure on statutory services, improve health outcomes and enable a holistic approach to care.

Seek regular feedback about the quality of service and impact of social prescribing on referral agencies.

Be proactive in encouraging self-referrals and connecting with all local communities, particularly those communities that statutory agencies may find hard to reach.

Provide personalised support

Give people time to tell their stories and focus on what matters to me. Build trust with the person, providing non-judgmental support, empathy respecting diversity and lifestyle choices. Work from a strength-based approach focusing on a persons assets.

Be a friendly source of information about wellbeing and prevention approaches. Help people identify the wider issues that impact on their health and wellbeing, such as debt, poor housing, being unemployed, loneliness and caring responsibilities.

Work with the person, their families and carers and consider how they can all be supported through social prescribing.

Help people maintain or regain independence through living skills, adaptations, enablement approaches and simple safeguards.

Work with individuals to co-produce a simple personalised support plan based on the persons priorities, interests, values and motivations including what they can expect from the groups, activities and services they are being connected to and what the person can do for themselves to improve their health and wellbeing.

Where appropriate, facilitate the introduction of people to community groups, activities and statutory services, ensuring they are comfortable. Follow up to ensure they are happy, able to engage, included and receiving good support.

Where people may be eligible for a personal health budget, help them to explore this option as a way of providing funded, personalised support to be independent, including helping people to gain skills for meaningful employment, where appropriate.

Support community groups and Voluntary organisations to receive referrals:
Forge strong links with local organisations, community and neighbourhood level groups, utilising their networks and building on whats already available to create a map or menu of community groups and assets.

Develop supportive relationships with local organisations, community groups and statutory services, to make timely, appropriate and supported referrals for the person being introduced.

Ensure that local community groups and organisations being referred to have basic procedures in place for maintaining vulnerable individuals are safe and where there are safeguarding concerns work with all partners to deal appropriately with issues. Where such policies and procedures are not in place, support groups to work towards this standard before referrals are made to them.

Support local groups to act in accordance with Information Governance policies and procedures, ensuring compliance with GDPR.

Work collectively with all local partners to ensure community groups are strong and sustainable:
Encourage people who have been c