One Knowsley - Case Study
Since the establishment of Primary Care Networks, One Knowsley has been working closely with both the health sector and the community sector to offer more people across the community better access to Social Prescribing to tackle the wider social determinants of health more proactively.
Who are One Knowsley?
One Knowsley is an independent social infrastructure body, also known as an umbrella body, and CVS (Council for Voluntary Service). One Knowsley provides a social prescribing service in partnership with Primary Care Networks based within Cheshire and Merseyside ICS. They have been working hard to lead the way with data-driven Social Prescribing, using the Access Elemental Software for the last two years.
What were the challenges?
As social prescribing has developed more rapidly across Knowsley and awareness of social prescribing started to grow, thanks to it being embedded in the NHS’ Long Term Plan, One Knowsley knew that if they were going to make social prescribing more sustainable, they needed to work in partnership with Knowsley VCFSE organisations. These partnerships would then enhance their reporting and management of data and information to not only show the impact of their social prescribing service but also the impact of Knowsley VCFSEs' organisation of referrals from link workers to support residents to access the services they need.
They knew that to work with PCNs and VCFSE organisations the methods used to embed social prescribing within GP practices needed to be simple and effective, as well as reduce the pressure on them. If it was more complicated and relied on them using extra systems, One Knowsley knew this would add more pressure to staffing capacity, and the multi-disciplinary approach to tackle the social and non-clinical issues of the community would not be successful.
It was clear they needed a system that would streamline the admin of a Social Prescribing journey to make it easier to start, track, and include all stakeholders, as well as the individual in the process. To do this they needed to digitally transform their service and use a solution that offered both safe and assured pathways, as well as accessible reporting to prove the evidence for Social Prescribing to increase engagement and secure future Social Prescribing funding.
The solution:
To best prepare for the increase of interest in social prescribing, in 2022, One Knowsley started to work with Access Elemental because they saw the potential it could give them to support not just individuals directly in Knowsley but also VCFSE organisations and the wider stakeholders across the whole ICS.
Our Social Prescribing software allowed One Knowsley the opportunity to build a stronger multi-disciplinary team to help them adapt their social prescribing models to best meet all the social needs across the entire ICS as they continued to grow.
Equally, it also offered them an innovative way to manage referrals to accommodate their different referral routes better by managing them in one centralised place.
Outcomes:
Since using Access Elemental, One Knowsley has been able to go from strength to strength over the last two years. Not only have they been able to provide continuous support across Knowsley PCNs, now they are finding ways to continue delivering their service across the rest of the ICS and have recently started a project with secondary care.
1. Better ability to develop multiple social prescribing models simultaneously.
At One Knowsley it is understood that there can be many reasons for referral and how the wider social determinants of health can impact an individual’s health and wellbeing differently.
At One Knowsley we also are aware of the importance of having the individual involved in the social prescription process. Here our Social Prescribing software has enabled One Knowsley to work in partnership with stakeholders in Knowsley to be able to create Social Prescribing journeys that cater to every need. This, in turn, has enabled General Practice staff to connect to One Knowsley’s social prescribing service across the whole of Knowsley’s PCNs
Now One Knowsley can work together with GPs across different practices to reduce waiting lists and times as well as GP attendance. In the last two years alone One Knowsley has received over 2,100 referrals across 15 different practices.
2. Improved Community’s Wellbeing
Undoubtedly, one of the most important outcomes that One Knowsley has experienced since working with Access Elemental is being able to improve the mental health and wellbeing of individuals across the Knowsley community.
Over the last two years, some of the top reasons for referral have been mild anxiety and depression, social isolation, and low self-esteem and confidence. Because of these reasons for referral, One Knowsley has heavily relied on VCFSE services to allow individuals to engage in group support and befriending groups to reduce social isolation across the community. One Knowsley support, develop, and amplify the voice of local voluntary, community groups, social businesses, and social action from our faith communities, charities, and third-sector organisations. Their full strategy can be read here: Our Strategy - One Knowsley
In the last year alone, after individuals got referred to One Knowsley’s social prescribing service, there has been a 74.3% increase in life satisfaction and a 71.1% increase in overall happiness. This, in turn, has also reduced GP attendance across the PCN by 50% as patients now have a better understanding of who to speak to for social and non-clinical support.
3. Offered new and improved referral routes
To manage the increase in referrals One Knowsley and Access Elemental worked together to find better ways to both make referrals and manage them. By doing this GP staff would find it easier and individuals could be connected to a Social Prescribing Link Worker within hours of a referral being made.
During the pandemic, One Knowsley worked with local VCFSE organisations to adapt their services so they could reach individuals both in person and online.
To make managing social prescribing referrals easier we went one step further. One Knowsley became one of the first organisations to pilot our two-way integration with EMIS Web. This not only made it easier for Social Prescribing Link Workers to receive referrals straight from GP staff, but all staff could make the referral within their clinical system in a matter of three clicks and were able to track a patient’s social prescribing journey at any time.
This made a significant difference in how One Knowsley’s Social Prescribing service developed as all data and information could be tracked throughout the journey. We also added additional SNOMED codes to make it easier to adapt social prescribing models to cater to every individual need. Here both Link Workers and GP staff alike could identify what stage of a journey a patient was in, their reasons for referrals, as well as see how their wellbeing scores changed throughout the process. This, in turn, helped provide One Knowsley better evidence for social prescribing to allow us to continue to grow across the ICS and work alongside other stakeholders to improve the wellbeing of their community.
Access Elemental has enabled us to streamline our processes, this enhances how efficiently we can deliver our model, and improves communication between One Knowsley and Primary Care and the VCFSE organisation we refer to. It gives us real-time data, and this allows better decision-making about providing future needs-led services for local people.
Debbie Bennett, Health & Care Transformation Manager at One Knowsley
Future:
At Access Elemental Social Prescribing we are delighted at the successes One Knowsley has experienced whilst growing and delivering its social prescribing programme. It has been great to be such an integral part of their journey and see how social prescribing has been able to spread across Cheshire and Merseyside ICS through enhancing their collaborative working and helping them create a stronger multi-disciplinary team.
Now more people than ever before know and understand what social prescribing is as well as where to seek advice whether it is in person or online.
We are looking forward to continuing our work with One Knowsley and helping them grow their social prescribing service across multiple organisations across different sectors that stretch further than Primary Care.
For more information on how our social prescribing software can help your primary care setting develop safe and assured pathways that can adapt to every social prescribing need, learn more about our digital social prescribing today.
Find out the best ways to implement and digital transform social prescribing across your primary care services today by downloading our guide now.
Contact us to see first-hand how we can adapt our social prescribing platform to best suit your community’s needs, whilst helping you to secure more multi-funding streams to make it more sustainable in the future.
