Social Prescribing Link Worker

Job Posted: 10 June 2025

• Contract Term: Permanent
• Location: Ryde, Isle of Wight
• Contract Type: Part time
• Salary: £24,058 per annum
• Industries: Health & Social Care Pharmaceutical & Medical

Closing Date: 25 June 2025

Social Prescribing Link Worker

The closing date is 25 June 2025

Job summary

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Part time 30 hours per week

Salary: £24,058 per annum

We are looking to recruit to the post of a Social Prescribing Link Worker, to work within our North East Primary Care Network healthcare team, providing 1:1 personalised support to people who are referred to them by team members and local agencies.

Social prescribing empowers people to take control of their health and wellbeing through referral to link workers who give time, focus on what matters to me and take a holistic approach to an individuals health and wellbeing, connecting people to diverse community groups and statutory services for practical and emotional support. Link workers also support existing groups to be accessible and sustainable and help people to start new community groups, working collaboratively with all local diverse partners.

Social prescribing can help to strengthen community resilience and personal resilience, and reduces health inequalities by addressing the wider determinants of health, such as debt, poor housing and physical inactivity, by increasing peoples active involvement with their local communities. It particularly works for people with long-term conditions (including support for mental health), for people who are lonely or isolated, or have complex social needs which affect their wellbeing.

Main duties of the job

Take referrals from a wide range of agencies, working with GP practices within primary care networks, pharmacies, multi-disciplinary teams, hospital discharge teams, allied health professionals, fire service, police, job centres, social care services, housing associations, and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations (list not exhaustive).

Provide personalised support to individuals, their families and carers to take control of their wellbeing, live independently and improve their health outcomes. Develop trusting relationships by giving people time and focus on what matters to me. Take a holistic approach, based on the persons priorities and the wider determinants of health. Co-produce a personalised support plan to improve health and wellbeing, introducing or reconnecting people to community groups and statutory services. The role will require managing and prioritising your own caseload, in accordance with the needs, priorities and any urgent support required by individuals on the caseload. It is vital that you have a strong awareness and understanding of when it is appropriate or necessary to refer people back to other health professionals/agencies, when what the person needs is beyond the scope of the link worker role e.g. when there is a mental health need requiring a qualified practitioner.

About us

This role is wholly employed by One Wight Health Ltd, our Islands GP Federation.

We host a team of Social Prescribers & Health and Well-being Coaches under a Primary Care Contract that support our Island practices.

This vacancy will provide Social Prescribing Support to the Practices within our North East Primary care Network.

The North East is the largest Primary Care Network by population size with 53,342 residents, and the most densely populated locality. The area offers a mix of urban and rural areas including the major gateway towns of Ryde and East Cowes. Its population profile mirrors that of the wider population, with a higher proportion of older people. Around 22.5 per cent of people living in the North East Locality PCN have a long-term illness or disability. The locality also has the highest rate of unemployment at 4.83 per cent and contains several areas of deprivation but, conversely, parts of the area are also home to many second homeowners.

The network is well resourced both in terms of GPs and a wide range of different practitioners operating within and across the practices including advanced nurse practitioners and shared roles like paramedics, providing a patient visiting service, and clinical pharmacists.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Key responsibilities

Take referrals from a wide range of agencies, working with GP practices within primary care networks, pharmacies, multi-disciplinary teams, hospital discharge teams, allied health professionals, fire service, police, job centres, social care services, housing associations, and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations (list not exhaustive).

Provide personalised support to individuals, their families and carers to take control of their wellbeing, live independently and improve their health outcomes. Develop trusting relationships by giving people time and focus on what matters to me. Take a holistic approach, based on the persons priorities and the wider determinants of health. Co-produce a personalised support plan to improve health and wellbeing, introducing or reconnecting people to community groups and statutory services. The role will require managing and prioritising your own caseload, in accordance with the needs, priorities and any urgent support required by individuals on the caseload. It is vital that you have a strong awareness and understanding of when it is appropriate or necessary to refer people back to other health professionals/agencies, when what the person needs is beyond the scope of the link worker role e.g. when there is a mental health need requiring a qualified practitioner.

Work with a diverse range of people and communities, to draw on and increase the strengths and capacities of local communities, enabling local VCSE organisations and community groups (including faith groups) to receive social prescribing referrals.

Work together with all local partners to collectively ensure that local VCSE organisations and community groups are sustainable and that community assets are nurtured, by making them aware of small grants or micro-commissioning if available, including providing support to set up new community groups and services, where gaps are identified in local provision.

Key Tasks

Promoting social prescribing, its role in self-management, and the wider determinants of health.

Build relationships with key staff in GP practices within the local Primary Care Network (PCN), attending relevant meetings, becoming part of the wider network team, giving information and feedback on social prescribing.

Be proactive in developing strong links with all local agencies to encourage referrals, recognising what they need to be confident in the service to make appropriate referrals.

Work in partnership with all local agencies to raise awareness of social prescribing and how partnership working can reduce pressure on statutory services, improve health outcomes and enable a holistic approach to care.

Provide referral agencies with regular updates about social prescribing, including training for their staff and how to access information to encourage appropriate referrals.

Seek regular feedback about the quality of service and impact of social prescribing on referral agencies.

Be proactive in encouraging self-referrals and connecting with all local communities, particularly those communities that statutory agencies may find hard to reach.

Provide personalised support

Meet people on a one-to-one basis, making home visits where appropriate within organisations policies and procedures. Give people time to tell their stories and focus on what matters to me. Build trust with the person, providing non-judgemental support, respecting diversity and lifestyle choices. Work from a strength-based approach focusing on a persons assets.

Be a friendly source of information about wellbeing and prevention approaches.

Help people identify the wider issues that impact on their health and wellbeing, such as debt, poor housing, being unemployed, loneliness and caring responsibilities.

Work with the person, their families and carers and consider how they can all be supported through social prescribing.

Help people maintain or regain independence through living skills, adaptations, enablement approaches and simple safeguards.

Work with individuals to co-produce a simple personalised support plan based on the persons priorities, interests, values and motivations including what they can expect from the groups, activities and services they are being connected to and what the person can do for themselves to improve their health and wellbeing.

Where appropriate, physically introduce people to community groups, activities and statutory services, ensuring they are comfortable. Follow up to ensure they are happy, able to engage, included and receiving good support.

Where people may be eligible for a personal health budget, help them to explore this option as a way of providing funded, personalised support to be independent, including helping people to gain skills for meaningful employment, where appropriate.

Support community groups and VCSE organisations to receive referrals

Forge strong links with local VCSE organisations, community and groups, utilising their networks and building on what is already available to create a map or menu of community groups and assets. Use these opportunities to promote micro-commissioning or small grants if available.

Develop supportive relationships with local VCSE organisations, community groups and statutory services, to make timely, appropriate and supported referrals for the person being introduced.

Ensure that local community groups and VCSE organisations being referred to have basic procedures in place for ensuring that vulnerable individuals are safe and, where there are safeguarding concerns, work with all partners to deal appropriately with issues. Where such policies and procedures are not in place, support groups to work towards this standard before referrals are made to them.

Check that community groups and VCSE organisations meet in insured premises and that health and safety requirements are in place. Where such policies and procedures are not in place, support groups to work towards this standard before referrals are made to them.

Support local groups to act in accordance with information governance policies and procedures, ensuring compliance with the Data Protection Act.

Work collectively with all local partners to ensure community groups are strong and sustainable

Work with commissioners and local partners to identify unmet needs within the community and gaps in community provision

Support local partners and commissioners to develop new groups and services where needed, through small grants for community groups, micro-commissioning and development support.

Encourage people who have been connected to community support through social prescribing to volunteer and give their time freely to others, in order to build their skills and confidence, and strengthen community resilience.

Encourage people, their families and carers to provide peer support and to do things together, such as setting up new community groups or volunteering.

Provide a regular confidence survey to community groups receiving referrals, to ensure that they are strong, sustained and have the support they need to be part of social prescribing.

General Tasks

Work sensitively with people, their families and carers to capture key information, enabling tracking of the impact of social prescribing on their health and wellbeing.

Encourage people, their families and carers to provide feedback and to share their stories about the impact of social prescribing on their lives.

Support referral agencies to provide appropriate information about the person they are referring. Use the case management system to track the persons progress. Provide appropriate feedback to referral agencies about the people they referred.

Work closely with GP practices within the PCN to ensure that social prescribing referral codes are inputted to SystmOne adhering to data protection legislation and data sharing agreements.

Person Specification

Other requirements

Essential

• Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.
• Access to own transport and ability to travel across the locality on a regular basis, including to visit people in their own home.

Desirable

• Flexibility to work outside of core office hours

Qualifications

Essential

• Holds a recognised healthcare or advisory qualification (or equivalent relevant experience).
• Good standard of education with excellent literacy and numeracy skills.
• Leadership and/or management qualification (or equivalent relevant experience)

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• Ability to communicate complex and sensitive information effectively with people at all levels by telephone, email and face to face.
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiation skills organisation skills with the ability to constructively challenge the view and practices of managers and clinicians.
• Ability to develop business cases.
• Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use word processing skills, emails and the internet to create simple plans and reports.
• Be flexible and able to manage sudden and unexpected demands.
• Effective time management (planning and organising).
• To be a strategic thinker and planner with the ability to consider and act upon complex issues.
• To be able to prioritise own work effectively and to direct activities of others.
• Demonstrate personal accountability, emotional resilience and work well under pressure.

Desirable

• Local knowledge of VCSE and community services in the locality.
• Knowledge of how the NHS works, including primary care.

Experience

Essential

• An understanding or previous experience of working within a Primary Care organisation or a comparable not for profit agency.
• Ability to demonstrate management of own caseload and prioritisation of case work.
• Previous experience or providing an advisory service assisting with complex patient situations which require multi agency working.
• Able to interpret, translate and deliver key messages to patient groups.
• Good practical and conceptual knowledge of healthcare improvement methods and community level services for referral purposes .
• Experience of successfully establishing working relationships within teams across multiple locations.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions

Employer details

Employer name

One Wight Health Ltd

Address

5A High Street,

Ryde

Isle of Wight

ENG

PO33 2PN

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