National Centre for Social Prescribing Data and Analysis launched with support from Grand Challenges

The new Centre at UCL will be directed by Professor Daisy Fancourt (Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology), whose UCL Grand Challenge of Mental Health & Wellbeing-funded project, ‘Tackling CAMHS Waiting Lists through Social Prescribing’, in collaboration with Dr Daniel Hayes (Senior Research Fellow, Social Biobehavioural Research Group) and Dr Ramya Srinivasan (Associate Professor in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), played a key role in securing this national partnership.

Developed in collaboration with the NHS and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), the project focuses on designing and piloting a new social prescribing pathway for young people receiving mental health support through CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services). 

“This partnership between the National Academy for Social Prescribing and the Social Biobehavioural Research Group at UCL marks an important step in accelerating the development and impact of social prescribing. It builds on the strong foundations laid by our UCL Grand Challenges-funded project and its support of ongoing clinical trials, which have helped shape this national initiative and secure funding." – Professor Daisy Fancourt 

Social prescribing has been successfully rolled out across England since 2019, with millions of people referred to link workers and a growing evidence base to show the positive impact. As the NHS enters a new phase, it will be crucial to use data and evidence to develop and target social prescribing services further, evaluate the benefits and inform investment. To that end, the Centre will be key to transforming timely access to high-quality, robust data required to inform many of the changes underpinning the Government's shift to a more proactive, sustainable health service focused on health prevention delivered with and through the community.  

The aims of the centre are to:  

1. Produce and promote a series of seminal reports on the impact of social prescribing across the English population, using large datasets from multiple sources including Access Elemental and the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), to demonstrate impacts through innovative methods of data analysis and utilise these for the national strategic development of social prescribing. 

2. Co-design long-term national data and analysis strategy for social prescribing with key stakeholders, to create a step change in the quality, depth and breadth of analysis required to inform future policy, investment and practice. 

Work in 2025/26 will commence with the design and development of a long-term data and analysis strategy for social prescribing, alongside the sharing of new evidence on the scale of social prescribing across England. 

UCL Grand Challenges Pro-Vice Provosts (Mental Health & Wellbeing), Professor Essi Viding and Argyris Stringaris commented:

“We warmly congratulate Daisy and are delighted to see the positive impacts emerging from UCL’s Grand Challenge of Mental Health & Wellbeing. We look forward to continuing to work together to advance impactful interventions, such as social prescribing, ultimately improving mental health outcomes.”