Assessing the feasibility of evaluating the economic impact of the BS3 Community Webs programme

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Pro Bono Economics has shown that there is a positive correlation between receiving social prescribing services broadly similar to BS3 Communities services and positive effects on an individual’s health, wellbeing and level of loneliness.

BS3 Community commissioned Pro Bono Economics (PBE) to assess the feasibility of evaluating the economic impact of their social prescribing Community Webs programme, a service based within local GP surgeries, aimed at supporting patients to access social activities and non-medical support services available in their community. This work would build on a 2018 assessment of the programme which found that patients referred for support experienced statistically significant improvements in standardised outcome measures for loneliness, social isolation and mental wellbeing.

PBE assessed the feasibility of evaluating the economic impact of their Community Webs programme by examining the availability and quality of evidence that could help link the outcomes of the programme to reduced demand for the National Health Service, including for GP appointments and reduced primary care usage.

The analysis showed that whilst there is not yet sufficient data to estimate the economic impact of the Community Webs Programme, existing data highlighted a positive correlation between receiving social prescribing services broadly similar to BS3 Communities services and positive effects on an individual’s health, wellbeing and level of loneliness. For example, the report notes that existing literature on social prescribing beneficiaries indicates an average reduction in the use of GP services of approximately 28% and A&E services of around 24% following referral. Studies assessing the Social Return on Investment for social prescribing interventions also tended to find positive impacts, with estimates ranging from £1.40 - £2.70 of benefits for every £1 spent.

PBE provided several recommendations to BS3 Community to evaluate the economic impact of the Community Webs Programme more specifically. This included, for example, engaging with GPs to gather data on the health services their patients utilise both before and after they are involved in the Community Webs service as well as aligning BS3 Community data with the national measures of well-being and loneliness used by the Office of National Statistics to support an improved ability to construct a control group based on general trends in the local population.

Thank you to Daniel Coleman, Thomas Farrell, Judi Hu, Lucy Hubbard, Claire Martin, and Maureen O’Reilly for their work on this project.

Thank you to Power to Change for supporting this project.

01 September 2020

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