An innovative pilot project in the emergency department (ED) at the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s RD&E Hospital (Wonford) is connecting patients with practical, social and emotional needs that affect their health and wellbeing to activities, groups and services in their own community.

Social prescribing is well-established in primary care and there is emerging evidence that connecting people to their community can lead to a range of positive health and wellbeing outcomes, such as improved quality of life and emotional wellbeing.

Despite this, there are only a handful of EDs in England that have integrated a social prescriber link worker into their team.

Since January, the Trust has been working with Devon charity Westbank to integrate two social prescriber link workers in its Exeter-based ED for six months to work with patients who may benefit from this service.

Social prescribing is an approach that works well for people who:

• Have one or more long-term conditions
• Need support with low-level mental health issues
• Are lonely or isolated
• Have complex social needs which affect their wellbeing

The social prescribing link worker will connect and signpost people to local community groups, using the Joy social prescribing software to better access practical and emotional support.

Some patients who access ED will have social and economic challenges alongside their physical and mental health needs. These are often patients who may have complex lives, are from deprived areas, and/or have protected characteristics, but may not be accessing or being offered support to enable them to live well at home.

Some of these patients will attend ED regularly and, if not well supported, their health and wellbeing could deteriorate at home. This pilot will assess the extent that this service may help reduce pressures on ED and enable this group of patients to be better supported to live well in their own homes and communities.

Dr Cassie Worth, an ED consultant at the Royal Devon, said: “A number of patients accessing our ED with physical health issues are also dealing with a range of social health issues. We would like to be able to better support these patients, but don’t always have the capacity or connections to provide the right support, which can be a frustrating when it’s clear that non-medical support would help.

“Embedding a social prescriber in our team, using the expertise from our local voluntary sector to better link people to address these broader issues, has the potential to be of huge benefit both to patients as well as relieving pressures on our services.”

Amanda Kohn, Head of Volunteering and Health Contracts at Westbank, said: “We are delighted to be able to use the expertise we have developed on social prescribing in the ED at Wonford as part of this pilot study. Our approach is based on giving people time, focusing on ‘what matters to me?’ to better support people to take control of their own health and wellbeing lining them with support they can access at home.”

This pilot will help to address health inequalities, which are systematic, unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population, and between different groups within society. They arise because of differences in the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work and age. The Royal Devon’s Health Inequalities Strategy outlines the ways the Trust is working to reduce them through involvement, insight and partnership working.