Across Europe, many individuals face significant barriers to accessing healthcare due to social, economic, and structural factors. These challenges disproportionately affect people in vulnerable situations, including LGBTIQ+ individuals, refugees and first-generation migrants, and older adults living alone. General practitioners (GPs) frequently encounter patients whose health problems are closely linked to social issues such as isolation, housing insecurity, discrimination, or limited access to community resources. However, primary care services often lack the structures and resources needed to address these non-medical determinants of health effectively.
Social prescribing (SP) offers a promising approach to bridge this gap by enabling healthcare professionals to refer patients to non-clinical, community-based support. This process is typically facilitated by trained link workers who help individuals identify and access appropriate local services and activities. While social prescribing has shown potential to strengthen integrated, people-centred care, evidence on its effectiveness for marginalised and underserved populations remains limited, and existing models are often insufficiently adapted to their specific needs.
The EU-funded SP-EU project addresses this gap by systematically adapting, implementing, and evaluating social prescribing for vulnerable groups across Europe. Using a combination of co-creation methods, randomised controlled trials, and qualitative research, SP-EU aims to develop tailored, evidence-based social prescribing models that improve access to community resources and reduce health inequalities. By strengthening the integration of health and social care, the project contributes to EU policy priorities on equity, inclusion, and sustainable healthcare systems, and supports the development of more responsive primary care services across diverse European contexts.
