Social Prescribing Link Worker

The closing date is 25 June 2025.

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Part time 30 hours per week

Salary: £24,058 per annum

We are looking to recruit to the post of a Social Prescribing Link Worker, to work within our North East Primary Care Network healthcare team, providing 1:1 personalised support to people who are referred to them by team members and local agencies.

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 diverse 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 diverse partners.

Social prescribing can help to strengthen community resilience and personal resilience, and reduces health inequalities by addressing the wider determinants of health, such as debt, poor housing and physical inactivity, by increasing people's active involvement with their local communities. It particularly works for people with long-term conditions (including support for mental health), for people who are lonely or isolated, or have complex social needs which affect their wellbeing.

Main duties of the job

• Take referrals from a wide range of agencies, working with GP practices within primary care networks, pharmacies, multi-disciplinary teams, hospital discharge teams, allied health professionals, fire service, police, job centres, social care services, housing associations, and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations.
• Provide personalised support to individuals, their families and carers to take control of their wellbeing, live independently and improve their health outcomes.
• Develop trusting relationships by giving people time and focus on what matters to me.
• Take a holistic approach, based on the person's priorities and the wider determinants of health.
• Co-produce a personalised support plan to improve health and wellbeing, introducing or reconnecting people to community groups and statutory services.
• Manage and prioritise your own caseload, in accordance with the needs, priorities and any urgent support required by individuals on the caseload.
• Have a strong awareness and understanding of when it is appropriate or necessary to refer people back to other health professionals/agencies.

About us

This role is wholly employed by One Wight Health Ltd, our Islands GP Federation. We host a team of Social Prescribers & Health and Well-being Coaches under a Primary Care Contract that support our Island practices. This vacancy will provide Social Prescribing Support to the Practices within our North East Primary care Network.

The North East is the largest Primary Care Network by population size with 53,342 residents, and the most densely populated locality. The area offers a mix of urban and rural areas including the major gateway towns of Ryde and East Cowes. Its population profile mirrors that of the wider population, with a higher proportion of older people. Around 22.5 per cent of people living in the North East Locality PCN have a long-term illness or disability. The locality also has the highest rate of unemployment at 4.83 per cent and contains several areas of deprivation but, conversely, parts of the area are also home to many second homeowners.

The network is well resourced both in terms of GPs and a wide range of different practitioners operating within and across the practices including advanced nurse practitioners and shared roles like paramedics, providing a patient visiting service, and clinical pharmacists.

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, giving information and feedback on social prescribing.
• Be proactive in developing strong links with all local agencies to encourage 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.
• Provide referral agencies with regular updates about social prescribing, including training for their staff and how to access information to encourage appropriate referrals.
• 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.

General Tasks

• Work sensitively with people, their families and carers to capture key information, enabling tracking of the impact of social prescribing on their health and wellbeing.
• Encourage people, their families and carers to provide feedback and to share their stories about the impact of social prescribing on their lives.
• Support referral agencies to provide appropriate information about the person they are referring.
• Use the case management system to track the person's progress.
• Provide appropriate feedback to referral agencies about the people they referred.

Person Specification

Other requirements

• Essential: Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.
• Access to own transport and ability to travel across the locality on a regular basis, including to visit people in their own home.

Qualifications

• Essential: Holds a recognised healthcare or advisory qualification (or equivalent relevant experience).
• Good standard of education with excellent literacy and numeracy skills.
• Leadership and/or management qualification (or equivalent relevant experience).

Skills and Knowledge

• Essential: Ability to communicate complex and sensitive information effectively with people at all levels by telephone, email and face to face.
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiation skills organisation skills with the ability to constructively challenge the view and practices of managers and clinicians.
• Ability to develop business cases.
• Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use word processing skills, emails and the internet to create simple plans and reports.
• Be flexible and able to manage sudden and unexpected demands.
• Effective time management (planning and organising).
• To be a strategic thinker and planner with the ability to consider and act upon complex issues.
• To be able to prioritise own work effectively and to direct activities of others.
• Demonstrate personal accountability, emotional resilience and work well under pressure.

Experience

• Essential: An understanding or previous experience of working within a Primary Care organisation or a comparable not for profit agency.
• Ability to demonstrate management of own caseload and prioritisation of case work.
• Previous experience or providing an advisory service assisting with complex patient situations which require multi-agency working.
• Able to interpret, translate and deliver key messages to patient groups.
• Good practical and conceptual knowledge of healthcare improvement methods and community level services for referral purposes.
• Experience of successfully establishing working relationships within teams across multiple locations.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details

Employer name: One Wight Health Ltd

Address: 5A High Street, Ryde, Isle of Wight, ENG PO33 2PN