Social prescribing: A new medicine?

The concept behind social prescribing is to link patients in primary care with local community services. Social prescribing is increasingly being championed as a key component of a GP’s therapeutic toolkit; it was referenced in the General Practice Forward View 2016 as an example of providing social support for patients and integrating care across the wider health system. This article sets out to describe what constitutes social prescribing, to highlight examples of services that exist, and to discuss the existing evidence base for social prescribing.