J’s story
Social Prescribing – Impact of Covid and Shielding
J’s story
J is a 57 year old woman who was referred to social prescribing following an appointment at the practice where a health professional was concerned about their mental wellbeing. J was referred as she was struggling with her mental health due to caring for her mother with dementia and shielding from Covid 19. The health professional had noticed a decline in the patient’s mental wellbeing following the Covid 19 lockdowns.
J struggled with anxiety whilst caring for her mother with dementia and shielding from Covid 19 to keep them both safe. J ’s mother was dependent on her for full time support. She was struggling to find time for herself due to being the only person caring for her mother and was interested in getting access to respite care for her but didn’t know where to look. Due to her anxiety surrounding Covid 19 and being her mother’s primary carer, patient was reluctant to have anybody at their home and was struggling with not being able to see her family often.
The Social Prescriber and J worked together on a long term basis having weekly sessions to support her in finding ways to improve her mental wellbeing whilst accessing options for respite care. Carers Hub became involved after J took steps to have her family round to visit, she discussed with her social prescriber that she would like to access respite care so that she could find time to look after her own mental health.
Impact for J
J was under the Social Prescribing Service for 3 months. During the Initial Assessment they discussed ‘What Matters to Me’ to explore and identify what was important for her and how the Social Prescribing service could assist healthy change. She identified what she would like to achieve by the end of her support with the service and established that she would like to see more of her family and access options for support as a full
time carer.
At first, she wasn’t confident with how she’d engage with services after shielding for a long time but became more confident on what type of support she would like through working with her social prescriber. She had 9 follow up calls to see how she was going and had 2 updates from services the social prescriber had referred patient into
confirming she was engaging with the service.