HSC How Social Prescribing and the VCSE Sector Support the Neighbourhoods Model

Integrated Neighbourhood Teams (ITNs) are at the centre of this shift. The bringing together of multidisciplinary support to local communities has enabled these teams to help move care away from reactive treatment and towards earlier, more personalised intervention.   

The Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector is a vital part of that picture. As neighbourhood care models continue to evolve, so does the need to ensure VCSE organisations have the stability and support to deliver alongside it. 

Clinicians increasingly recognise that many appointments are driven by social need rather than clinical complexity. Social prescribing offers a practical way to respond - and the scale of uptake reflects that. In many areas, platforms such as Access Elemental are helping link workers coordinate referrals and connect people to local VCSE services more efficiently, giving neighbourhood teams greater visibility of the community support available to them. 

A 2025 study published in The Lancet Public Health estimated that 1.3 million people were referred to social prescribing services in 2023 alone, far exceeding the NHS's original five-year target.   

The challenge is that NHS England funds link workers directly but does not fund the community activities and services they refer people into. VCSE organisations are therefore absorbing rising demand that’s linked to loneliness, financial hardship, housing pressures and mental health needs without a corresponding increase in resources. Many are small, locally rooted and running on short-term funding, often delivering real impact with very little administrative support.  

A 2024 study published in the British Journal of General Practice found that the areas with the greatest need for social prescribing support were receiving the least provision in terms of link worker employment - disproportionately affecting urban, more deprived communities. Where neighbourhood systems have expanded referral routes without strengthening what sits behind them, the result is pressure rather than prevention.  

Referral numbers only tell part of the story. If the organisations on the receiving end don't have the capacity to respond, the people who need support most are the ones who miss out - and that undermines the whole purpose of neighbourhood working.  

Coordination is one of the defining challenges of neighbourhood ways of working. Social prescribing connects clinical and community activity, but information flows between those settings are still inconsistent in many areas.  

Without clear referral management and shared outcome data, it is hard for ICBs to see where demand is rising, which services are nearing capacity or whether preventative investment is making a difference. Platforms like  Access Integrated Care Platform (AICP) are designed to address exactly this by giving neighbourhood teams and system leaders a shared view across care settings, so that decisions are based on what is actually happening across the system rather than fragmented snapshots.  

For VCSE organisations, better connected systems reduce duplication and make it easier to demonstrate impact. For commissioners, that visibility supports more confident, evidence-based decisions. Neighbourhood oversight needs to extend into the community infrastructure that supports it, not just the clinical pathways running through it.  

If neighbourhood working is serious about prevention, the VCSE sector needs to be recognised as a core part of the system. Stable, multi-year partnerships rather than short-term funding arrangements are what allow community organisations to build the sustained relationships that preventative work depends on. When funding is uncertain, those relationships are difficult to maintain, and the people who would benefit most from early support can end up without it.  

VCSE organisations also bring valuable insight into emerging need, particularly among communities that do not routinely engage with formal health services. That local knowledge is a genuine asset to neighbourhood planning and population health strategy and commissioning models should reflect that, rather than treating community services as a variable cost to be managed down.   

Neighbourhood working looks different in every area, but the foundations of effective VCSE integration tend to be consistent. If you're assessing where your system currently stands, these questions are a good place to start. 

At Access Health, we work alongside NHS and VCSE partners to help neighbourhood systems connect the data, people and services that make this possible. If you'd like to find out more about how we can support your organisation, get in touch with our team today.