Our contribution to health and wellbeing research
Research is central to our work at Ways to Wellness. We use an evidence-based approach to explore how holistic, personalised care can be translated into practical, scalable solutions that address the full spectrum of social and structural determinants affecting wellbeing.
Through our work, we have contributed to the growing evidence base supporting holistic healthcare solutions to tackle health inequalities worldwide.
This includes collaborations with academic institutions, Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations, and government partners. These include Newcastle University, Health Equity North, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the NHS.
Research papers
2025
Claisse, C., Penn, S., Broadbridge, A., Guise, S., Bray, L., Wilson, J. & Durrant, A.C. (2025) ‘See the Whole of Me’ A community, life‑course approach to maternal listening. Report. Newcastle University.
Johnson, E.A., Duffy, S., Stark, G., Atkinson, J., Reed, H., Nettle, D., Wilkinson, R. & Johnson, M. (2025) ‘What principles ought to underpin ‘Radical Prevention Funds’? Ten principles capable of addressing social determinants to promote public health’, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12, Article 1279.
Osei‑Asemani, E. & Bertotti, M. (2025) Post‑event summary report: Social Prescribing in Secondary Care Roundtable. Institute for Connected Communities, University of East London.
Bennett, N., Bailey, A., Broadbridge, A., Crowe, L., Unthank, J., Richardson, V., Ayadurai, C., Qi, X., Albani, V. & Scott, S. (2025) “Childcare shouldn’t be a luxury”: Exploring experiences of formal and informal childcare in North East England. Health Equity North.
Gordon, L., Hastry, M., Bate, A., Gordon, K., Greaves, E., Dimitriadou, S., Rapley, T. & Basu, A.P. (2025) ‘Hospital in‑reach family‑centred social prescribing pilot for children with neurodisability: mixed methods evaluation with social return on investment analysis’, BMC Health Services Research, 25(1).
Donaldson, C. (2025) Financing Health and Social Care: Bringing Health Economics Back into Public Policy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
2024
Human Learning Systems (2024) Ways to Wellness: VCSE Maternal Mental Health Services Project.
National Academy for Social Prescribing (2024) Ways to Wellness: Long‑Term Conditions service.
NHS Confederation (2024) Ways to Wellness: maternal mental health services.
Cantrell, A., Booth, A. & Chambers, D. (2024) Signposting services for people with health and care needs: a rapid realist review. Health and Social Care Delivery Research.
Magne, S. (2024) In Pursuit of Outcomes: Moving from setting conditions to ‘Co‑Missioning’. The National Lottery Community Fund.
North‑East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System (2024) North‑East and North Cumbria Women’s Health Programme: Regional Needs Assessment.
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) (2025) Supporting young women in the perinatal period: a realist evaluation of community‑based services.
2023
Gordon, K., Gordon, L. & Basu, A.P. (2023) Social prescribing for children and young people with neurodisability and their families initiated in a hospital setting: a systematic review. BMJ Open.
The Health Creation Alliance (2023) Personalised care, social prescribing and community strengthening: Part 2 — Community strengthening.
Grover, S., Sandhu, P., Nijjar, G.S., Percival, A., Chudyk, A.M., Liang, J., McArthur, C., Miller, W.C., Mortenson, W.B., Mulligan, K., Newton, C., Park, G., Pitman, B., Rush, K.L., Sakakibara, B.M., Petrella, R.J. & Ashe, M.C. (2023) Older adults and social prescribing experience, outcomes, and processes: a meta‑aggregation systematic review. Public Health, 218, pp.197–207.
McHugh, N., Biosca, O. & Donaldson, C. (2023) Social Finance and Health. London: Routledge.
2022
Charlton, J.J.V., Battersby, A., Drinkwater, C., McKean, M. & Quibell, T. (2022) Addressing the crisis in child mental health: the feasibility of primary prevention through social prescribing as the missing link. Research Square.
Polley, M. (2022) Response to media reports on social prescribing: CoM and SPN websites. College of Medicine & Social Prescribing Network.
Sandhu, S., Lian, T., Drake, C., Moffatt, S., Wildman, J. & Wildman, J.M. (2022) Intervention components of link worker social prescribing programmes: a scoping review. Health & Social Care in the Community.
Al‑Khudairy, L., Ayorinde, A., Ghosh, I., Grove, A., Harlock, J., Meehan, E., Briggs, A., Court, R. & Clarke, A. (2022) Evidence and methods required to evaluate the impact for patients who use social prescribing: a rapid systematic review and qualitative interviews. Health and Social Care Delivery Research.
Finegan, T. (2023) Health service design for older people: The role of community, and the community and voluntary sector in the implementation of the ‘Living Well at Home’ piece of the Integrated Care Programme for Older People in Kilkenny. MA thesis, South East Technological University, Carlow.
Laing, K.J.C., Robson, S., Thomson, H. & Todd, L. (2022) Creating transformational change through partnership. In: Otrel-Cass, K., Laing, K.J.C. & Wolf, J. (eds) Partnerships in Education: Risks in Transdisciplinary Educational Research. Springer, Cham, pp. 359–383.
Government Outcomes Lab, University of Oxford (2022) Case study: Ways to Wellness. GO Lab Knowledge Bank, Blavatnik School of Government.
2021
Williamson, L. (2021) Social prescribing: the future of healthcare? British Journal of Healthcare Management, pp. 162–165.
Hulse, E.S.G., Atun, R., McPake, B. & Lee, J.T. (2021) Use of social impact bonds in financing health systems responses to non-communicable diseases: scoping review. BMJ Global Health.
Garside, R., Orr, N., Short, R., Lovell, R., Husk, K., McEachon, R., Rashid, R. & Dickie, I. (2021) Therapeutic Nature: Nature-based social prescribing for diagnosed mental health conditions in the UK: Final Report for Defra. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
2020
Salway, M., Palmer, P., Grant, P. & Clifford, J. (2020) Demystifying Social Finance and Social Investment. London: Taylor & Francis / Routledge.
Pretty, J. & Barton, J. (2020) Nature-Based Interventions and Mind–Body Interventions: Saving Public Health Costs Whilst Increasing Life Satisfaction and Happiness. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Tan, S., Boaz, A., Fraser, A. & Mays, N. (2020) Backing what works? Social Impact Bonds and evidence-informed policy and practice. Public Money & Management.
Aggar, C., Caruana, T., Thomas, T. & Baker, J.R. (2020) Social prescribing as an intervention for people with work-related injuries and psychosocial difficulties in Australia. Advances in Health and Behavior.
de Gruyter, E., Petrie, D., Black, N. & Gharghori, P. (2020) Attracting investors for public health programmes with social impact bonds. Public Money & Management.
Jani, A., Bertotti, M., Lazzari, A., Drinkwater, C., Addarii, F., Conibear, J. & Gray, M. (2020) Investing resources to address social factors affecting health: the essential role of social prescribing. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 113(1), pp. 24–27.
Huckfield, L. (2020) The Mythology of the Social Impact Bond: A Critical Assessment from a Concerned Observer. Historical Social Research, 45(3), pp. 161–183.
2019
Davison, E., Hall, A‑M., Anderson, Z. & Parnaby, J. (2019) Connecting communities and healthcare: Making social prescribing work for everyone. Social Prescribing Kent & Medway.
Walton, H., Harshfield, A., Tomini, S. M., Ng, P. L., Cowan, K., Sussex, J. & Fulop, N. J. (2019) Innovations in Adult Social Care and Social Work Report. University of Birmingham / BRACE Rapid Evaluation Centre.
Andreu, M. (2019) Impact bonds and the ambiguous politics of market ethics. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
Carè, R. & De Lisa, R. (2019) Social Impact Bonds for a Sustainable Welfare State: The Role of Enabling Factors. Sustainability.
Williams, J. W. (2019) From Visions of Promise to Signs of Struggle: Exploring Social Impact Bonds and the Funding of Social Services in Canada, the US, and the UK. Final Research Report. York University.
Wildman, J.M., Moffatt, S., Penn, L., O’Brien, N., Steer, M. & Hill, C. (2019) Link workers’ perspectives on factors enabling and preventing client engagement with social prescribing. Health & Social Care in the Community, 27(4), pp. 991–998.
Penn, L., Goffe, L., Haste, A. & Moffatt, S. (2019) Management information systems for community‑based interventions to improve health: qualitative study of stakeholder perspectives. BMC Public Health.
Del Giudice, A. & Migliavacca, M. (2019) Social Impact Bonds and Institutional Investors: An Empirical Analysis of a Complicated Relationship. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 48(1), pp. 50–70.
2018
Huckfield, L. (2018) The mythology of the social impact bond. In Chiapello, E. & Knoll, L. (eds.) Social Finance, Impact Investing and the Financialization of the Public Interest 2017. Historical Social Review Special Edition.
Fraser, A., Tan, S., Kruithof, K., Sim, M., Disley, E., Giacomantonio, C., Lagarde, M. & Mays, N. (2018) Evaluation of the Social Impact Bond Trailblazers in Health and Social Care: Final Report. Policy Innovation Research Unit, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Weller, A. & Pedersen, E.R.G. (2018) Pay for Success Literature Review: A PreCare Report. Copenhagen Business School (CBS).
Taheri, M., van Geenhuizen, M.S. & Holbrook, J.A. (2018) ‘Health Impact Bonds as a novel financial arrangement in healthcare transition’, in van Geenhuizen, M.S., Holbrook, J.A. & Taheri, M. (eds.) Cities and Sustainable Technology Transitions: Leadership, Innovation and Adoption. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 361–384.
2017
Polley, M.J., Fleming, J., Anfilogoff, T. & Carpenter, A. (2017) Making Sense of Social Prescribing. University of Westminster.
Moffatt, S., Steer, M., Lawson, S. & Penn, L. (2017) ‘Can “social prescribing” help adults with long‑term health problems to age well?’ Newcastle University.
Chan, K., Chow, A., Chan, C. & Lou, V. (2017) ‘Evaluating community end‑of‑life care models for older people with advanced illnesses in Hong Kong’. Innovation in Aging, 1(Suppl 1), pp. 512–513.
Laing, K., Penn, L., Wildman, J., Steer, M., O’Brien, N. & Moffatt, S. (2017). “It was the turning point in my life”: Ways to Wellness (WtW) social prescribing intervention – qualitative findings from client and link-worker perspectives. Golab, University of Oxford.
Wilson, P.M., Farley, K., Bickerdike, L., et al. (2017) Case studies exploring uptake and use of evidence in Clinical Commissioning Groups’ decision-making. In: Effects of a demand-led evidence briefing service on the uptake and use of research evidence by commissioners of health services: a controlled before-and-after study. Southampton (UK): NIHR Journals Library.
Picker, V. (2017) Current barriers to and facilities of undertaking rigorous impact evaluations of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) – a stakeholder‑informed systematic review and thematic synthesis. Master’s thesis, University of Oxford.
2016
Big Society Capital and ATQ Consultants (2016) Commissioning Better Outcomes Fund evaluation: update report.
Villeneuve‑Smith, F. and Blake, J. (2016) The Art of the Possible in Public Procurement. E3M / Innovation Procurement Empowerment Centre (IPEC).
Baba, H., Tsukamoto, I. and Yoshioka, T. (2016) A comparative study on impact measurement of Social Impact Bonds for social service innovation. Presented at the International Society for Third‑Sector Research (ISTR) Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 30 June–1 July 2016.
2015
Tan, S., Fraser, A., Giacomantonio, C., Kruithof, K., Sim, M., Lagarde, M., Disley, E., Rubin, J. and Mays, N. (2015) An evaluation of Social Impact Bonds in Health and Social Care: Interim Report. Policy Innovation Research Unit (PIRU), London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and RAND Europe.
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Left to right; Simon Bromhead, Ways to Wellness Head of Development, with Chief Executive Sandra Mitchell-Phillips, and Head of Digital Systems Sonia Townend