How can gardens, libraries and museums (GLAM) support social prescribing?

The team delivered one workshop to members of the public  and this second workshop, held at Kellogg College, to a wider stakeholder group which included those delivering and commissioning social prescribing services as well as representatives from the arts and cultural sector.

THE OBJECTIVE

The aim of the workshop was bring together key stakeholders with an interest in social prescribing and who were keen to explore how gardens, libraries and museums could become support this initiative. A key objective of this workshop was to encourage networking amongst those attending, fostering and building, new and accelerated relationships where mutual research and implementation priorities could be identified.  

ATTENDEES

The project team were keen to invite a range of key stakeholders to the workshop. Some stakeholders were identified through existing networks and received personalised invitations to the workshop. The workshop was also advertised on the departmental website and Eventbrite. A number of stakeholders were invited after initially getting in touch expressing an interest in attending the workshop for members of the public (link to blog for day 1). The workshop was attended by 33 stakeholders representing a range of institutions and services. There was considerable representation, including from the Royal College of General Practitioners, Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England, The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Mind UK, the Citizens Advice Bureau, the local Clinical Commissioning Group, the local council, as well as many local charities and social prescribing service providers.

THE WORKSHOP

Following coffee and introductions, the day opened with a series of short presentations from the project team providing, followed by a presentation from Louise Bradbury (Director of Health and Care Services at OxFed). Dr Bradbury provided the audience with insights into how the local federation of GPs were supporting social prescribing activities. Each of the presentations generated a number of questions and much discussion from the workshop participants. Discussions centred around understanding existing social prescribing infrastructure in Oxford and the potential of the third sector to contribute; funding models to support and ensure the sustainability of social prescribing; regulation and quality assurance of activities; the importance of high quality evaluation; and sharing examples of best practice.

Find out more about this project.

Amadea Turk is a Researcher in Evidence Synthesis at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, and is part of the School for Primary Care Research’s Evidence Synthesis Working Group.

* The CEBM/GLAM project team consisted of Tony Meacock (public contributor), Stephanie Tierney (CEBM), Amadea Turk (CEBM), Kamal Mahtani (CEBM), Lucy Shaw (GLAM) and Emma Webster (GLAM).

Acknowledgements: The project team would like to acknowledge the contributions from the participants joining these workshops. Also, the wider members of the CEBM and GLAM division who have directly or indirectly supported this work. This work is supported by the University fo Oxford Knowledge Exchange Seed Fund and NIHR School for Primary Care Research.