Measuring the economic impact of the wellspring healthy living centre's social prescribing wellbeing programme for low level mental health issues encountered by GP services
Year: 2013
Type: report
Abstract: This research evaluates the impacts of a holistic social prescribing Wellbeing Programme delivered by the Wellspring Healthy Living Centre, Bristol. As a holistic social prescribing approach it is representative of many third sector led interventions seeking to support local primary care services. It offers GP-referred patients 12 weeks of one-to-one support followed by 12 months of group support around a particular activity. Socio-economic impact was measured through Social Return On Investment (SROI) approach using a pre and post intervention interviews using the Wellspring Wellbeing Questionnaire tool (WWQ). Data collected using the WWQ suggests that three months after a beneficiary’s induction on the intervention beneficiaries show statistically significant improvement in: PHQ9 (p=<0.001), GAD7(p=<0.001) , Friendship Scale (p=<0.001), ONS Wellbeing measures (item range p=<0.05 through to p= 0.001), perceived economic wellbeing (p=<0.0001) and the IPAQ items for moderate exercise. Analysis of GP contact times also suggest that for 6 in 10 beneficiaries there is a reduction in their GP attendance rates in the 12 months post intervention compared to the 12 months period prior to the referral. For 26% of beneficiaries it stayed the same and for 14% it actually increased. Having established the social impact of the Wellbeing Programme we calculate a Social Return on Investment ratio of £2.90:£1.
Authors: Richard Kimberlee, Matthew Jones, Jane Powell
Institution: University of the West of England
Language: English
Subfield: Conservation
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2164470871