If you tune into ABC Perth Radio, you would have recently heard Nadia Mitsopolous interview Dorte Hansen, Project Lead for Amity Health’s Albany Connected Community Project (ACCP). Dorte was joined by program participant Julie, who shared her story and the positive impact social prescribing has had on her life, pictured right.

With referrals coming directly from GPs, other health professionals, and community members themselves, the project is helping to:

• reduce loneliness and isolation

• support people with non-clinical needs that would otherwise fall back on GP clinics

• strengthen wellbeing through community-based connection

• ease pressure on an overstretched primary health care system

Half-way through a three-year pilot, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, this model is delivering exactly what regional WA needs: preventative support that keeps people well and helps to reduce demands on clinical services.