Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group have issued a briefing note on the People Keeping Well initiative, a community-based prevention activity that can help to prevent and delay people needing to access health and social care services.
‘People Keeping Well’ is one of Sheffield’s approaches to Social Prescribing, which itself is a means of enabling medical and care professionals to refer people to a range of local, non-clinical services.
The initiative aims to resolve social issues and connect people to ‘things that matter to them’ locally which will reduce the risk and/or decline of poor health and wellbeing, so that people:
- Are more connected – they have made friends and have a peer network for support
- Are more resilient – they have coping mechanisms to deal with ‘life issues/crisis’ better
- Know where to go to get timely help – for example to manage long term conditions.
Within People Keeping Well there are 2 distinct strands:
1. PKW Community Partnerships
- Voluntary community organisations
- Health Trainers and community wellbeing activities
- Make a referral: www.sheffielddirectory.org.uk/pkw *Webpage currently under construction.
2. Community Support Workers
- Approx 19 Council staff
- Co-located in GP practices
- Make a referral: www.sheffield.gov.uk/csw
For more information on the project, and to find out how to refer to the service see the People Keeping Well Briefing Note.