Health Justice Partnership in Suffolk

Grant: £19,855
November 13, 2017

The project aims to improve understanding of how social prescribing in health settings could increase access to social welfare legal advice in Suffolk and reduce health spend by researching current practice and building a robust business case for local health commissioners to fund local advice services to develop and run an effective model of future delivery.

Currently, social prescribing activities in Suffolk are small scale, sporadic and little is known about their nature or the extent of their impact, which is a challenge for advice services seeking to develop a more cohesive, strategic structure for support. The project will address this by identifying existing activities within the county and, by using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, summarise the nature of these activities and the extent to which they are successful in increasing access to social welfare legal advice.

The project will examine the challenges faced by those providing social prescribing activities in the county and summarise perceived gaps and areas for improvement, in addition to potential opportunities, with a view to informing development of a Business Plan. The research will also draw upon best practice from elsewhere in the UK by researching five case studies of social prescribing activities that are considered to be successful models and use them to design a suitable Suffolk model.