Social Prescribing Link Worker

Job summary

If you are keen to help people and like working as part of a supportive team then you could be what we are looking for.

We are seeking an enthusiastic patient facing Social Prescriber to join the multi-disciplinary Primary Care team in our Primary Care Network supporting patients across our area.

You will be based at Bishop Sutton and supporting 2 of the 6 practices in our area at Alresford and Medstead.

You will have the experience, communication skills and knowledge to build trusting relationships with people, understand their real needs to create tailored self-care and support plans. You will connect them appropriately to enable them to live the life they choose

Social Prescribing is a means of enabling healthcare professionals to refer patients to a wide range of non-clinical programme's, services, voluntary and community organisations and events in their local community. There they can learn about the support possibilities and design their own personalised solutions, co-producing their ‘social prescription’.

Social Prescribing seeks to address a patient’s needs across several areas such as physical activity, diet and nutrition, mental health and social support. It is often referred to as a ‘more than medicine’ approach to health and wellbeing as it is considered that many long term conditions can be helped by lifestyle change alone.

Main duties of the job

• You must be a good listener, have time for people and be committed to supporting local communities to care for each other.
• You should have experience of working positively with people facing complex social and emotional challenges
• You will have great interpersonal skills in supporting people, community groups and local organisations
• You will ned to be able to put people from all walks of life at their ease and inspire confidence
• You will have experience of building an individuals motivation, confidence and be able to connect them with appropriate community services through supporting them to achieve their goals
• Motivational interviewing or health coaching type skills would be useful.
• You will also need good organisational skills and an understanding of priorities.
• You will need to demonstrate a robust knowledge of confidentiality, data protection, safeguarding and boundaries in all aspects of your work.
• You will be a car driver

About us

The Winchester Rural North Primary Care Network (PCN) consists of 6 practices - Gratton, Stockbridge, Whitchurch, Watercress, Alresford and West Meon.

We are a cohesive, mutually supportive group and we welcome the opportunity to bring in new roles to work with our current teams.

We want to strengthen and develop general practice, to enable the delivery of high quality care to local people.