Gloucestershire Integrated Care System builds on the work developed by Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group with a social prescribing and cultural commissioning programme and a dedicated team of staff. Social prescribing, including arts on prescription, is recognised as key to enabling delivery within the Gloucestershire Integrated Care System.
In the context of increasing life expectancy and patient demand for both GP consultations and A&E services, alongside growing levels of social isolation and anti-depressant medication, the county has looked at how best to connect people to non-medical community activities. For example, 50% of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients do not attend pulmonary rehab because it is exercise based. They looked at whether some of these people would benefit from a 12 week Singing on Prescription ‘Breathe In Sing Out’ choir instead, so they worked with local charity Mindsong to deliver this. In their 2014-15 social prescribing pilot they saw a statistically significant increase in reported mental wellbeing scores, a 23% decline in A&E admissions and a 21% decline in GP appointments in the six months after referral compared with the six months before. Independent evaluation suggested an estimated return on investment of £1.69 (health £0.43; social £1.26).
