Geographic inequalities in need and provision of social prescribing link workers a retrospective study in primary care.

Background: Long-term health conditions are major challenges for care systems. Social prescribing link workers have been introduced via primary care networks (PCNs) across England since 2019 to address the wider determinants of health by connecting individuals to activities, groups, or services within their local community.

Aim: To assess whether the rollout of social prescribing link workers was in areas with the highest need.

Design and setting: A retrospective study of social prescribing link workers in England from 2019 to 2023.

Method: Workforce, population, survey, and area-level data at the PCN-level from April 2020 to October 2023 were combined. Population need before the rollout of link workers was measured using reported lack of support from local services in the 2019 General Practice Patient Survey. To assess if rollout reflected need, linear regression was used to relate provision of link workers (measured by full-time equivalent [FTE] per 10 000 patients) in each quarter to population need for support.

Results: Populations in urban, more deprived areas and with higher proportions of people from minority ethnic groups had the highest reported lack of support. Geographically these were in the North West and London. Initially, there was no association between need and provision; then from July 2022, this became negative and significant. By October 2023, a 10-percentage point higher need for support was associated with a 0.035 (95% confidence interval = -0.634 to -0.066) lower FTE per 10 000 patients.

Conclusion: Rollout of link workers has not been sufficiently targeted at areas with the highest need. Future deployments should be targeted at those areas.