Community-rooted Health Support

Oxford Hub is working together with a local healthcare network and community groups in South East Oxford to support people to improve their health and wellbeing in a holistic way.

We support people to meet new people, connect with each other, and get active. We also support people to set up their own activities.

This work has evolved from Oxford Together, our response to the covid-19 pandemic, as a longer-term, coordinated approach to tackling social isolation and health inequalities in Oxford. This ties in with other work we’re doing to support children and families in South East Oxford.

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Social Prescribing

We work in partnership with the South East Oxford Health Alliance (SEOxHA) to support patients through social prescribing – this covers the health centres in the Leys, Cowley, Donnington and Hollow Way. Social prescribing is an approach where GPs and other health care professionals help people to access things that will improve their health and wellbeing, with support from a link worker or connector. There’s a whole range of things that people can be supported to access, from exercise classes to social groups or creative activities, depending on what’s best for each person.

Two Oxford Hub staff members work within the SEOxHA social prescribing team as link workers. This enables us to build connections between social prescribing and the communities we work with. This includes:

• creating new activities, adapting existing ones to meet people’s needs, or helping people to organise their own

• developing different approaches to social prescribing that work for everyone, whether their starting point is one-to-one support or coming along to a friendly cuppa and chat with peers and link workers

• facilitating scaffolding support to help people reach their goals.