Integrating Money Advice within Primary Care

Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership

Partner organisations: GEMAP Scotland Ltd, Glasgow Centre for Population Health, Deep End GPs, Associate Clinical Director NHS GGC

 

GP practices in the East of Glasgow cover some of the most deprived communities in Scotland. The issues surrounding poverty and household debt affect the physical and mental health of people and communities across Scotland. This in turn has an impact on how GP practices deliver services.

While a universal money advice referral pathway has been in place for several years, and GP’s recognise the importance of their patients accessing quality advice, data demonstrates they seldom use it.

Previous piloting of an embedded advice worker in two GP practices demonstrated that it can significantly increase referrals to advice services and provide patients with a quality service that alleviates poverty and meets their needs in a confidential and anonymous way.

This project scaled up the model within the Parkhead cluster area to address poverty by embedding a Money Advice worker in each GP practice a half day a week. The worker took referrals directly from the practice team, supporting the aspiration that practices will function with wider multi-disciplinary support.

Embedding advice and supporting practice ownership made a significant difference to referrals and the reach of advice services. Outcomes included income maximisation, mitigating welfare reform changes, supporting debt management and financial capability.

Over the course of the project there were a total of 665 referrals, of those 451 engaged with advice services, resulting in around £1.5 million in financial gains.

The project was supported by grant funding from the ihub's Improvement Fund in 2016-2017.

  • What was the approach?
  • What was the impact?
  • What was the learning?
  • What are the next steps?