Hansard

Social prescribing is an idea whose time has come. I echo Lewis Macdonald’s comment that the concept is a crucial tool for the future of our health services in Scotland and further afield.

So, what is social prescribing? At a simplistic level, it deals with much, much more than simply physical activity. I will give an example. This week, The Sunday Times reviewed a book on neuroscience, which quoted the statistic that the impact that loneliness can have on a person’s emotional health is the equivalent of the impact of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Social prescribing is well defined in the Royal College of Occupational Therapists briefing to MSPs as being

“linked to an increased drive towards personalising health and social care and the widely accepted understanding that people’s health is determined by a number of complex and interrelated social, economic and environmental factors.”

Of course, social prescribing is not a panacea and it will not work for everyone or everything. It is a complement for people with serious and complex mental and physical health needs who will still require medical interventions and specialist one-to-one help.

Macmillan Cancer Support gave an interesting description of social prescribing as being about

“working with people as experts in their own lives”.

SAMH said that social prescribing can reduce

“the prevalence of mental health problems... demands on health services... and social exclusion.”

The minister should note that that conclusion was shared by the British Journal of General Practice.

An example relating to mental health that we probably all know about is that exercise referral schemes are useful treatments for mild to moderate depression. However, there are no such schemes in NHS Highland, NHS Orkney or NHS Shetland, which makes this a case of a rural postcode lottery—I would say that, as a representative of the Highlands and Islands, and the minister may wish to comment on that situation.

Other members have touched on best practice, and I will give four quick examples from across Scotland. The first two are from SAMH. Its “Active living becomes achievable” project relates to behaviour change and has helped more than 300 people to achieve active lifestyles, and its GP link workers in North Lanarkshire and Aberdeen have helped more than 5,000 people. Thirdly, the “Changing room” initiative—which I am particularly interested in as a long-suffering fan of Inverness Caledonian Thistle—which was launched in 2018, uses the power of football to encourage men to talk about improving mental health. The initiative involves the Scottish Professional Football League and Hibs and Hearts. I am glad that George Adam is in the chamber, because that example was raised at the Health and Sport Committee this morning. It was suggested that a GP could prescribe membership of St Mirren; he replied that it would not help our health very much, but I hope for the sake of his mental health that the team will stay in the same division, because relegation would be terrible for him.

Finally, Cycling UK has a body of evidence that cycling as a form of physical exercise is extremely good for health. It runs lots of schemes throughout Scotland, which are very positive examples of best practice.

The evidence that was received by the committee, of which I am a member, made it clear that an increased use of social prescribing would have the potential to lessen the burden on overworked and under-pressure GP practices, as well as to reduce the pressure on health and social care services and cut waiting times, unplanned admissions to hospital and delayed discharges—all aspects of service that are currently failing to meet their targets.

As the convener said earlier, the committee received written evidence from 97 organisations including the Highland green health partnership, the active Highland strategic partnership and many organisations that work nationally. They provided insights into the barriers to social prescribing, which can be particularly acute in remote and rural areas in the Highlands and Islands, where short-term funding arrangements for third sector providers has a significant impact on the sustainability of many key referral destinations.

The report’s findings identify the challenges that face the third sector, which is integral to the capacity for social prescribing, and note that further work is required to ensure that voluntary and community organisations have the capacity and capability to fulfil socially prescribed activities. Other barriers to realising the full potential of social prescribing have been briefly touched on, including workforce considerations. My understanding was that the Government was looking to add 250 link workers; however, unless I picked up wrongly what the minister said, I thought that he gave a slightly higher figure. I assume that 250 is the correct number, and would be happy to take an intervention from the minister to confirm that point.