Midlands Thriving Communities network Resource Page

Key links

The closure of the Thriving Communities project from 1st October 2023 means we encourage members to keep updated with the work that NASP is doing. Please fill in this short form, allowing you to also join their newsletter. 

You can also find information on the NASP website. Here are links to opportunities and information for voluntary and community organisations, health care professionals and students, Social Prescribing Link Workers, and beneficiaries of social prescribing. You can also follow NASP on LinkedIn, Tweeter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.

Midlands regional newsletters, with updates on resources and what is happening across the region: June 2023, July 2023. 

Midlands social prescribing resource document. Midlands Healthy communities report August 2023

The Midlands Thriving Communities work was hosted by Communities1st, which has fantastic resources on Social Prescribing. 

   Social Prescribing Opportunities

Social Prescribing Services Mapping

This map is created for providers to find their local Social Prescribing service in the Midlands. Services are managed by GP Practices, Primary Care Networks, GP Federations, and the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector.  The map is split up into Integrated Care System geographical footprint (ICS). For clarity on boundaries, please click here. 

If you are aware of a social prescribing service that is not on the map or struggling to find a service near you or have any questions regarding the map please contact midlands.thrivingcommunities@nasp.info. We aim to keep developing the map to help connect the VCFSE sector with social prescribing services where Social Prescribing Link Workers are based. 

 Social Prescribing maturity framework

The maturity framework is a quality improvement tool to support leaders at System, Place and Neighbourhood levels to work together strategically to embed social prescribing and make it as effective as possible. The SP maturity framework will enable local leaders to:

• Assess local social prescribing maturity and determine areas for improvement
• Create an ICS social prescribing strategy, agreeing on key priorities for improving social prescribing
• Determine key priorities for collaborative working at a local level

A suggestion to collate responses from across your ICS patch is to put this framework into a form that can collate responses. 

The aim is to support local areas to develop a mature and sustainable social prescribing ecosystem. 

System leaders in the ICS area are encouraged to use these e-forms of the maturity matrix provided by Joined up Care Derbyshire to support data insights across ICS. The collated data will enable a system lead to join individual GP practices or PCNs to support one another in improving practice. A recommendation is to use group meetings to enable a reflective process of filling out the forms and increase the number of data completion at each level; neighbourhood, place and ICS.

Place = Microsoft Forms

Neighbourhood = Microsoft Forms

ICS =Microsoft Forms

Want to list your social prescribing offer? 

DIGILYNX is one of the directories that demonstrates what it could look like by using the Open Referral UK standards. By working with data openly having only one database for your information to be shared widely, it will help you reach many more people who are searching for your services, activities and places, especially social prescribers. By understanding open data and this opportunity, it can help you make an informed decision for your next steps.

What is Open Referral UK?

Here's a short animation that explains the Open Referral UK open data standard that has been developed for online directories for community services and activities:

If you want to find out more and play a part in shaping this database to suit your needs, have a look at the 3-minute Open Referral UK video and this 10-minute DIGILYNX demo video (or view below).

You can also learn more about DIGILYNX and open data on their webpage.

How is NHS changing and what is an ICS?

Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) present an opportunity to deliver an integrated approach to health and social prescribing, involving partnership and collaboration with different parts of the systems and local communities. 

In this video, you'll get to find out more:

• What does this mean for the organisations that make up the NHS? 
• How will they collaborate with other parts of the system? 
• And what’ll these changes mean for you and me? 

You can also find more resources and information here from The King's Fund

^{NHS Properties Webinar}

• Are you aware of the building/space support and advice you can get from NHS Properties ?

• To help you understand the opportunity, you can view the webinar recording here and contact NHS Properties representatives Jay/Charlotte for your building needs. 

• Charlotte for West Midlands: Charlotte.Jarvis@property.nhs.uk , Jay for East Midlands: Jay.Ashley@property.nhs.uk

              Access Webinar recording

^{Social Prescribing Activity Themes} 

 Here you'll find the latest resources on the various themes of activities. NASP regularly runs national webinars on different activity themes and you can access their past recordings here.

Financial Wellbeing

NASP and Money and Pensions Service launched a guide to recruit social prescribing advice link workers using ARRS funding. A tip is to ensure this work considers what already exists, which will require cross-sector collaboration.

Toolkit for Social Prescribing Link Worker Host Organisations Click here

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