Agenda item

The Board received a paper setting out an approach to the evaluation of the Social Prescribing Innovation Partnership and was asked to determine how that evaluation should be delivered.

The confirmation of the approach to evaluation of social prescribing represented an immediate and pressing priority.  It was vital that there was a shared view of what success would mean for the social prescribing model from the outset of the Innovation Partnership, with an agreed approach to evidencing success that was sufficient for partners to make future investment decisions on a collaborative basis.  However, the questions raised by this exercise were equally applicable across all activity which sought to deliver the Thriving Communities and Health Improvement ambition through community led early intervention and prevention approaches.  These approaches had the potential to have wide reaching fiscal, economic and social benefits but the service currently sat outside of any single discrete area of commissioning or service transformation.

The proposed evaluation framework for the Social Prescribing Innovation Partnership considered in detail within the submitted report sought to explore four key questions:

1.  What is the impact for the people referred into social prescribing?

2.  What is the impact on the public service system?

3.  What is the impact on the local voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector?

4. How effectively has the model been implemented?

A range of methodologies comprising quantitative measures, Social Return on Investment Modelling and qualitative engagement with key stakeholders were proposed to seek to capture impacts across the intended outcomes of social prescribing.  A budget of up to £100k had been allocated within Thriving Communities Transformation Funding as part of the business case.  A number of options as to how the Social Prescribing evaluation could be delivered had been identified and an assessment of each was presented in the submitted report -

Option A - To commission the whole evaluation in two parts – firstly, the quantitative and social return on investment elements and secondly, the qualitative elements. 

Option B - To engage an evaluation partner to deliver the qualitative and social return on investment elements of the evaluation while using existing in-house resources to deliver the quantitative elements. 

Option C - To appoint to a post within the Thriving Communities team to deliver the whole evaluation. 

A Member queried the nature of the proposed evaluation, asking whether the assessment could be achieved through other forms of analysis, including the setting of key performance indicators and developing in-house capacity.  The Board was asked to note that funding had already been identified and approved within the business plan and that a specific skill set, not necessarily available currently, was required to undertake the evaluation.  It was also suggested that an external view would add credibility to the evaluation results and noted to the Board that the NHS was increasingly seeking University inputs into evaluation exercises to ensure rigour. 

RESOLVED that the proposed evaluation framework for the Social Prescribing Innovation Partnership be agreed, the evaluation methodology to be agreed subject to considerations by the Strategic Director (Reform) in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care as to reducing costs on the exercise and how in-house capacity could be drawn upon and developed to contribute to support the evaluation.