Show your working: the case for better storytelling

Over the last few months, our Head of Digital Systems, Sonia Townend, has been working with Northern Health Futures Hub, otherwise known as NortHFutures, and Dr Matt Cooper, a researcher from Newcastle University, to pilot a series of workshops designed to help those involved in social prescribing to harness the information at their fingertips so they can use it to secure more opportunities. With several of these learning clinics having now taken place, in this blog post Sonia tells us about the themes the team has encountered so far.

“I’ve delivered three ‘Telling the story of your impact using data’ sessions in Newcastle, Carlisle and Durham so far. We’ve had a real mix of people in the room, including social prescribing link workers, team leaders, people working in digital transformation, and colleagues from larger voluntary sector organisations.

“What struck me across all three sessions was how different people’s experiences of data are. Some work in organisations with established systems and dedicated resources for collecting, analysing and reporting data. Others are doing much of this themselves alongside their day-to-day role. There was definitely a common theme across all three sessions; people know they are sitting on useful information, and they want to do more with it. That feels incredibly important for social prescribing right now.”

The data dividend

“Historically, services have been asked to report outputs. How many referrals did you receive? How many people did you support? How many contacts did you have? We are now getting much better at measuring outcomes, looking at things such as wellbeing, social isolation, physical activity, or financial strain. I think the next step is in generating real value from this raw information.

“Because it’s one thing to show that someone’s wellbeing has improved, but it’s another to understand what that improvement meant for them, and what happened as a result. Did they start getting out of the house more? Did they become more physically active? Did they return to work or volunteering? Did they feel more able to manage their own health? Did their use of NHS services change?

“That wider picture matters because social prescribing rarely affects just one part of someone’s life in isolation. A link worker may initially support someone because they are lonely, struggling financially, or finding it difficult to manage their health, but the impact of that support can spread much further, and this was a big part of what we explored during the sessions.

“We looked at what data services collect, including the Social Prescribing Information Standard, but also at information that is freely available that might complement our own insight. For example, Fingertips public health data from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), as well as data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF). All of these can help us understand the population around a service, helping put our own data into a much wider context.

“This allows us to move beyond saying ‘we supported 500 people this year’, and empowers us to understand who those 500 people were, and whether they reflect the communities we serve. It enables us to identify whether we are reaching those people experiencing the greatest inequalities, as well as any groups that may be missing. It can even tell us about differences in outcomes for different groups when they do access a service.

At Ways to Wellness, we’ve developed our own custom Management Information System (MIS), which has been adapted over the years to ensure we are putting our own learning in this area into practice. We now have more than 11 years’ worth of data from more than 12,000 client journeys across many different prototypes. This has enabled us to influence policy and practice in terms of how social prescribing is used in different settings, from long-term conditions in primary care, to maternal mental healthcare, and to support whole families navigating complex hospital treatment.”

Beyond the numbers

“Our workshops didn’t focus solely on data gathering, however. We also spent quite a bit of time looking at how you can tell a compelling story once you have it; not everything needs to become a dashboard. Sometimes a simple graph works, and sometimes one statistic says everything you need it to say. But at other points, the most useful evidence is demonstrated by presenting a case study alongside the numbers.

“To this end, we experimented with tools such as RAWGraphs.io and Microsoft Copilot, to see how technology and artificial intelligence (AI) might help people analyse and present their data to best effect. Matt also spoke about the potential data can offer to get involved in, or find opportunities to carry out your own research, and what to do when your data leaves you with a question you seemingly cannot answer. Something noticed in everyday practice might be the starting point for a research question, a funded project or eventually, published research.

“There was plenty of enthusiasm in all of the rooms we’ve spent time in across the workshops that have taken place so far, but also some understandable frustration. Finding time to collect, analyse and present data is challenging when your priority is to support people and communities. We need to think about how we build this into everyday ways of working, rather than treating impact measurement as another job to squeeze in when time allows. And I think this matters more now than it has for some time.”

Charting the future

“We know the NHS is under huge financial pressure. At the same time, the direction of travel from its 10-year plan for health is towards prevention, neighbourhood health, and more care delivery taking place in communities. Social prescribing should have an important role in those shifts, but we need to be able to demonstrate why.

“At Ways to Wellness, we’ve developed an astounding amount of evidence to understand that social prescribing can affect far more than someone's immediate health. It can connect people with their communities, help address financial or housing problems, increase physical activity, reduce isolation, and support people towards employment or volunteering. If all we report is how many referrals we receive, or how many appointments we deliver, much of that value stays hidden, and the case is never made for the value we add to individual lives, to communities and neighbourhoods, to budgets and the wider economy.

“My biggest takeaway from the three sessions we’ve carried out so far is that across the social prescribing and VCSE landscape we already have a lot of the ingredients. Services are collecting data. Link workers know the changes they see in people. And there is public data available to give us further context. We have outcome measures, case studies, and increasingly accessible tools to help us analyse and present information. But we need to get better at joining those things together.

“Beyond demonstrating outcomes, the urgent question for social prescribing is how we best demonstrate the value of those outcomes, to individuals, communities and the wider health and care system. Because if we don’t tell that story clearly, we can’t have much to say if system design and decision-making appears not to fully recognise our value.”

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We have three further sessions on ‘Telling the story of your impact using data’, in Middlesbrough on 8 September, and online on 9 September and 17 September respectively.