It may now be national policy and championed by both the NHS and the Government… but social prescribing still isn’t on the radar of many practitioners, both in the UK and globally.

Here, College of Medicine Chair, Dr Michael Dixon, offers a guide to exactly what social prescribing is, how he discovered it as a disillusioned young GP and its earliest origins in the Peckham Experiment more than 70 years ago…

Watch our short video with him, offering a potted history of all things social prescribing, below:

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• Food as medicine: our guide to the best herbs for health
• DEAN ORNISH: ‘We should remember that simple lifestyle changes can be as effective as advances in medicine…’