Lunch Hour Lecture | Social prescribing: ground-breaking or gimmicky?
Professor Daisy Fancourt discusses the UK's social prescribing initiative, its widespread adoption, and the ongoing debate about its effectiveness and potential to exacerbate health inequalities.
Lunch Hour Lecture | Social prescribing: ground-breaking or gimmicky?
04 Mar 2025, 13:00 – 14:00
About the lecture:
In 2019, the UK government announced a radical, major investment in “social prescribing” as part of its NHS Long Term Plan. A type of personalised care, social prescribing connects individuals with non-clinical supports and services within the community to address diverse health and social needs. Since, an estimated 3 million people in the UK have received social prescribing and the scheme has spread to over 30 countries. But there has been much controversy about whether social prescribing can genuinely address health needs or instead presents an unregulated service potentially even exacerbating health inequalities. This talk will consider the findings to date, including the substantial body of clinical trials and epidemiological analyses led by UCL’s Social Biobehavioural Research Group.
UCL’s popular public Lunch Hour Lecture series has been running at UCL since 1942, and showcases the exceptional research work being undertaken across UCL. Lectures are free and open to all and since 2020 have been held online.
Professor Daisy Fancourt
Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology
UCL
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Further information
Ticketing
Ticketed and Pre-booking essential
Cost
Free
Open to
All
Availability
Yes
