Social Prescribing Co-Design: COORDINARE - South Eastern NSW PHN
Status: Completed March 2021
Client: COORDINARE
Background
In partnership with COORDINARE, Beacon Strategies was engaged to inform the development of a model of social prescribing for people living with chronic health conditions in the South Eastern NSW region through a co-design process.
Social prescribing is an emerging concept that aims to better enable general practitioners (GPs), nurses and other primary care professionals to refer people to a range of community-based, non-clinical services to improve health and wellbeing outcomes.
The project was developed to build social connection and self-management capacity in people living with chronic conditions in the region, with chronic conditions being the leading cause of morbidity and premature mortality.
Approach
This project was carried out utilising a co-design process that was delivered via a Collaborative Pairs process. This method brings together a consumer, patient or community leader to collaborate with a service provider, clinician or manager to develop new ways of working together and facilitate healthcare improvement.
Each ‘Collaborative Pair’ worked together to co-design potential service initiatives that increase social connectedness and utilisation of non-clinical support for those living with chronic illness.
Outcomes
Over the first month of the project, 5 separate ‘pairs’ consisting of a health consumer together with a health professional met to share their perceptions and experiences of accessing or referring people to non-clinical social supports. They also explored some of the barriers and enablers relating to this social prescribing becoming more widespread.
This then led to the first of two feedback loops, where broader perspectives were sought. You can watch a short recorded webinar summarising the findings captured:
This project was closed out through the distribution of a final report which concentrated on the methods used within this project, the findings that came from this and recommendations and implications moving forward.
COORDINARE published a summary report on their website (https://www.coordinare.org.au/) which can also be viewed directly below and downloaded here.
COORDINARE have already actioned the recommendations from this project by issuing a tender for eligible organisations to establish and manage a regional social prescribing referral network (find out more here). The PHN has also released a summary report of our work to their tender portal. If you want to check it out follow this link to register and download the report.
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