Armed Forces Community Social Prescription Link Worker

Tender description

During the pandemic we have experience outbreaks among our armed forces personnel including HMS Raleigh and RNAS Culdrose. Whilst we don’t know the impact of the pandemic on veterans, there are clear needs of support for both service personnel and veterans during this pandemic. This includes reducing the impact of social isolation and health inequalities through the provision of a targeted intervention using specialised social prescribing link workers (SPLW). The SPLW will be in place for a 12-month period to support the physical and mental health needs of armed forces personnel and veterans, as well as support with helping outbreak compliance and self-isolation measures. This project will fund one specialist and dedicated SPLW who is experienced with working with service personnel and veterans and has knowledge of the accessible specialist help and support available for this population. The SPLW will work with this population to support with accessing self-isolation grants, supporting compliance measures with the ongoing pandemic and provide important support with their physical and mental health. To ensure sustainability, the SPLW will provide work force development of the current social prescribing programmes across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. This will include an agreed training and awareness raising programme to increase capacity across the wider system. This will be achieved in collaboration with the wider NHSE ‘test and learn’ demonstrator, which will look to increase social prescribing for the Armed Forces Community, support the education of the wider social prescribing workforce around the needs of the armed forces community and work to develop an App that all SPLW’s can access to support people from the Armed Forces Community to receive the right help and support. We would expect the SPLW funded through this resource to become part of the demonstrator team to create a holistic and robust development programme around Armed Forces Social Prescribing