In a drive to target the hard-to-reach groups, Places Leisure has introduced a team of social prescriber link workers as part of its Healthy Communities strategy.

The new team is establishing close links with Northumberland County Council’s Public Health team and will be an additional resource to support the current social prescribing network, ensuring residents get access to the right activity to fit their needs.

Alison Elsender has joined from the NHS to head up the team. Having previously worked in the prison and probation service, with unemployed people and those living with addictions, she has experience of working with hard-to-reach and hard-to-engage groups.

“Cost is a common barrier,” she says, “but there's also a big issue around having the confidence to come into our leisure centres. People with serious mental health issues and offenders tend to have access to a lot of support, it’s the people with the low level problems who tend to miss out the most.”

Elsender says she will also be looking to make the exercise referral process with GPs more streamlined and also support people through the process, even if that means meeting them at the leisure centre for their first appointment. As Northumberland is such a large, rural area, more activities will be taken out into the community and Elsender will be identifying those opportunities.

“Social prescribing is about looking at every person individually and finding out the barriers to getting them into our centres,” she says. “The core message is to get people more active and healthy, but I want to add an extra dimension to that and make sure we're doing the right thing for people at the right time.

"Social prescribing is all about listening. It's not a one-size fits approach. I want to involve the community because it has to be done from the bottom up.”