Social prescribing reinforces a holistic approach to health. Benefits include improved fitness, motivation, and confidence to maintain better health, alongside reducing the burden of polypharmacy.1 Unfortunately, there remains a recognised deficit in referrals for ethnic minority patients to social prescribing schemes.2 Social prescribing may not have the desired outreach to British Asian and minority ethnic groups because of cultural, religious, and language barriers within social prescribing projects that prevent these schemes from being diversity friendly.3
As a result, there arises a need to ensure certain projects are designed with ethnic minority communities as the key stakeholders in an effort to encourage these groups to access social prescribing. Interestingly, charitable organisations and cultural groups have the necessary resources and a deeper understanding of their local populations to benefit the health and wellbeing of their communities.4
As a team at Sampad Arts, a heritage organisation based in inner-city Birmingham serving the local South Asian population, our latest project aims to address these inequalities by instituting a social prescribing event aimed at ethnic minority groups. Organisations like Sampad have the machinery to overcome those cultural barriers that prevent access to social prescribing, which consequently improves the implementation of projects in those communities that are isolated from these schemes.5 Ultimately, working with organisations that have a greater knowledge of their communities will lead to the development of projects in a culturally sensitive manner.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2021