Fig. 2

Diagram 2: What are the key elements of sustainable social prescribing?. The diagram is essentially a flow chart that represents what we regard as core ingredients of system sustainability, as they relate to social prescribing in general (†), and to examples from our study (*). The box at the top of the chart concerns ‘Holistic thinking, inclusivity, sharing’. ‘Operational and relational processes’ are positioned left to right. Boxes on the left concern ‘Strategic planning and implementation’ and ‘Learning’. Boxes on the right concern ‘Emotional Buy-in’ and ‘Communication, feedback, network building’. Key systems literature informing this diagram include Churchman [24], Bell and Morse [29], WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Systems [20] and Flood and Finnestrand [19]. Key social prescribing sources include Polley et al. [17] and NHS Scotland [47]. In collating the flowchart we identified a unique driver of social prescribing, emotional buy-in