Social prescribing for people with ongoing health problems in Cwm Taf Morgannwg

January 2023

PRIME Centre Wales has recently completed a collaborative project focused on social prescribing for people with ongoing health problems in Cwm Taf Morgannwg.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of people on hospital waiting lists meaning it is important to consider alternative sources of support to help people manage their own health.  There is growing interest in how ‘social prescribing’ can provide non-medical support for health problems.

Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board have set up an innovative multi-component Wellness Improvement Service (WISe) to offer coaching and social prescribing for people referred from primary care, to try to optimize health, prevent deterioration while waiting or even removing the need for hospital review.

This project, led by PRIME researchers based at Cardiff University School of Medicine, aimed to collaborate with people who are currently on waiting lists to explore their views and preferences for social prescribing services.

Here is a summary of what we have learned so far and some of the materials we have produced.

Logic model

The logic model developed to guide the evaluation study.

Training

We wanted to learn more about how we could work together meaningfully with a range of different people who have an interest in WISe.  We asked the organisation Co-production Wales to come and deliver training to members of the university staff and staff from the WISe team.  Sixteen staff attended and gave great feedback about the session and its relevance to their work. (picture available). 

Co-production engagement event

Co-production Wales then helped us to plan a session for staff and service users to find out more about what wellness meant to them and how WISe could contribute to this.  Here is the summary of what we found:

WISE Infographic 1 - click here to download

Arts workshops

We worked with two artists who have been providing workshops as part of WISe: Ursula Frank from Taiko Drumming Wales and Becky Adams  who is running Creative Crafts workshops.  We attended their workshops to see how they ran and talk to the participants about what they thought about them.  We also heard about what benefits they had seen from attending  the other WISe activities.

WISE Infographic 2 - click here to download

Producing a film

We worked with a local video production company to capture people’s experiences.  We have produced two films together with WISe users and staff.  The first talks broadly about the benefits of an approach like WISe (link) and the second gives more details on the Arts in Health aspect of the service. (link)  

We hope these films will be shared widely so people can understand how approaches like this can be helpful.

Film 1 - The arts workshops.

Film 2 - The WISE service overall. 

Next steps