How this fits in

Social prescribing has been embraced enthusiastically, however, little is understood about whether it works as anticipated. Within one social prescribing intervention it was observed that there was a tension between two approaches to social prescribing, one emphasising intensive support and the other focused on empowering clients to make lifestyle changes. Requirements for link workers to devote time to generating referrals and to focus their efforts on the completion of regular assessments (to generate payments for providers) facilitated a drift towards the latter lighter-touch approach. Although greatly appreciated by some clients, such a lighter-touch approach had limited capacity to improve the circumstances or health of those living with most disadvantage.