National Working Group on Social Prescribing

Dose of Nature trustees, Dr Alison Greenwood and Dr Dan Bloomfield, attended the first meeting of a new National Working Group on Social Prescribing, jointly hosted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Rebecca Pow MP, in the Jubilee Room, Westminster Hall, on 19th June, 2018.

Social prescribing is proposed as ‘a sustainable response to the rising demands in mental health’, and the working group has been established as a forum in which to discuss issues regarding the introduction of a national social prescribing programme. The meeting was attended by politicians, commissioners, membership organisations, Health Education England, Health and Wellbeing Boards, provider organisations, and the charity sector. Following the meeting, a consensus statement, which can be found here, was produced and a letter written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Rt. Hon. Matt Hancock MP.