GETTING prescribed a walk in a park instead of a pot of pills could become a more common phenomenon in Swindon GP surgeries.

And the growth in so-called social prescribing could help those with mental health complaints or who suffer from loneliness, say Swindon projects.

Social prescribing, where doctors refer patients to schemes like walking groups or gardening charities that offer support in the community, is nothing new. In Swindon, surgeries are paired with Community Navigators, responsible for pointing patients in the direction of helpful projects.

But changes in the NHS contract by which GPs are paid means it will become a much stronger focus of primary care in coming years. Groupings of GP surgeries, called primary care networks, will get extra cash from the government to hire social prescribers – responsible for signposting people to community groups.

Dr Philip Mayes of Kingswood Surgery in Park North says the changes would hopefully mean “more of the same”, with his cluster of GP practices employing its own social prescriber in the near future.

For Dr Mayes, the benefits of referring patients to certain schemes is obvious: “It works.”

That was particularly true for those with low-level mental health issues: “Key to wellbeing is social interaction and learning something new. Social prescribing can have a really big effect on people’s wellbeing. Most people will probably benefit from some interaction with these sort of activities.”

Those sort of activities include health walks run Step Out Swindon, led by local Ramblers group chairman Grahame Lee: “From a mental health point of view the big thing is meeting new people, getting out and about, talking to people.

“With new members, we make sure we pair them up with someone. Within two or three weeks you wouldn’t know they were the same person. It’s quite an amazing transformation we see sometimes.”

Most of the people attending the group had found out about them through friends or other community groups. Very few referrals came through GPs, Grahame said.

The walker had found it hard to get the project in front of doctors, despite delivering leaflets to surgeries and offering to give talks to groups of GPs and practice staff.

Swindon NHS Clinical Commissioning Group, which commissions GP care in the town, said more social prescribing was on the horizon.

A spokesman said: “Patients across Swindon, particularly those with long-term physical and mental health conditions have benefited from the concept of social prescribing for some time.

“The community navigator programme is an excellent example of how local people are getting support away from the traditional GP setting, as the scheme see patients partnered with a named coach who is able to dedicate extended periods of time to not only educating them on their condition and how to live well, but also supporting them to gain confidence in themselves which - in turn - can help people overcome issues such as depression and social isolation which often develop as an unfortunate side-effect of ill-health.

“These type of schemes have brought advantages for the wider Swindon health system too, as with more and more patients becoming more knowledgeable about their condition, there is less of a need for people to spend time with their GP or make unnecessary visits to hospital, meaning that GPs and other healthcare professionals can spend more time providing care to people with an urgent or emergency health concern.

“The NHS Long Term Plan - which outlines how the health service is set to adapt and evolve over the next 10 years - predicts that more than 900,000 people will have benefited from social prescribing by 2024 and, with Swindon an area that is often at the forefront of the latest healthcare initiatives, it’s only a matter of time before more and more people across our town are in receipt of the help and care they need in this new and innovative way.”