Paper short abstract:

Social Prescribing aims to alleviate health inequalities through signposting people into non-clinical activities. Social Prescribers find it challenging to collect Outcome Measurements. This paper investigates dissonance between the ethical orientation of the measurements, staff and service users.

Paper long abstract:

In order to support the broader life contexts which shape health and wellbeing, since 2016, the UK has been developing a ‘Social Prescribing’ program. This consists of a supported referral route from NHS health services, via an NHS paid Social Prescriber, into other state, community or charitable services that can support people in non-clinical ways, for example, with financial advice, housing problems, or social groups and activities. The aim is for these programs to alleviate health inequalities while also making good economic sense for the NHS, through focusing on prevention and on non-clinical forms of support. Yet in order to continue to secure support locally, regionally and nationally, Social Prescribers are tasked with measuring the impact of their interventions, typically, through using ‘before’ and ‘after’ Wellbeing measures. These measurements prove challenging to complete, both for service users and Social Prescribers. Taking up the invitation of this panel to consider the ethical orientations of service users and health systems, this paper discusses why accruing wellbeing outcome measures is so challenging, and how these measurement challenges play out. I will explain how people are ethically orientated in different ways towards need, towards care, towards one another, and – crucially - towards time. I argue that the diverse ‘ordinary’ forms of evaluation that service users and Social Prescribers use are dissonant from the formal measurement system.