
Julia Hotz
Jul 23, 2024
Instead of asking "what's the matter with you", link workers ask patients "what matters to you" and find suitable community activities that fit their answer.
In a bid to improve health and wellbeing, social prescriptions can cover everything from volunteering and art classes to support with household bills. But do they really work?
Akeela Shaikh is a natural carer. After becoming a mother at 19, she realised she loved caring for people and decided to pursue it professionally – first at a home care agency, then in a residential care home. "I just knew, that's me: caring," she says.
But the care jobs she loved so much started to tax her physically. They came with literal heavy lifting: moving patients, pushing beds, being on foot 24/7 to tend to patients' every need. Gradually, the caring took a toll on her back and she realised it wasn't going away; she had developed chronic pain.
Her doctor urged her to rest, and eventually the pain got so bad Shaikh agreed. But instead of making her feel better, Shaikh found resting only made her feel worse, and she found she could no longer get out of bed. "It was a nightmare, and I became a nightmare," she says. Read more ...