Purpose This paper aims to identify the well-being outcomes of a social prescribing model set within a secondary mental health service recovery pathway and understand the key characteristics of a social prescribing referral for producing these outcomes. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative case study of one mental health social prescribing service with three nested case studies of social prescribing providers. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with commissioners, providers and patients (n = 20) and analysed thematically. Findings Social prescribing makes a positive contribution to emotional, psychological and social well-being for patients of secondary mental health services. A key enabling mechanism of the social prescribing model was the supportive discharge pathway which provided opportunities for sustained engagement in community activities, including participation in peer-to-peer support networks and volunteering. Research limitations/implications More in-depth research is required to fully understand when, for whom and in what circumstances social prescribing is effective for patients of secondary mental health services. Practical implications A supported social prescribing referral, embedded within a recovery focussed secondary mental health service pathway, offers a valuable accompaniment to traditional approaches. Current social prescribing policy is focussed on increasing the number of link workers in primary care, but this study highlights the importance models embedded within secondary care and of funding VCSE organisations to receive referrals and provide pathways for long-term engagement, enabling positive outcomes to be sustained. Originality/value Social prescribing is widely advocated in policy and practice but there are few examples of social prescribing models having been developed in secondary mental health services, and no published academic studies that everybody are aware of.

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Accounts of institutional change and categorization conventionally assume that high‐status change agents can impose change, even to stable category systems, which lower‐status actors accommodate in order to ensure social approval and material resources. By exploring the UK Conservative‐Liberal Coalition's rhetorical efforts to reform the welfare state, how welfare providers are categorized and the subsequent response of implicated category members, we offer instead an account of institutional change that exposes the agentic limitations of high‐status actors. While governments may well be in a position to impose changes in the formal rules of the game through manipulation of material resources (fiscal contraction, privatization, open markets, deregulation), we find that they cannot necessarily monopolize symbolic resources (identities/cultural features). We also find that deviation from cultural expectations is available not only to large, high‐status organizations; low‐status actors too have discretion over their responses to institutional pressures regarding how they are categorized and subsequently judged.

This article presents empirical findings about the distinctiveness of smaller voluntary sector organisations (VSOs) involved in welfare service provision, based on in-depth, qualitative case study research. We identify a series of organisational features and practices which can mean that smaller VSOs are distinctive from larger organisations. These include how they are governed and managed, their approach to their work, and their position relative to other providers. To explain our findings, we draw on the concept of stakeholder ambiguity. This idea was posited by Billis and Glennerster (1998) and is commonly cited in relation to distinctiveness. We identified several manifestations of stakeholder ambiguity and confirm the concept’s explanatory importance, although we argue that our understanding of distinctiveness is enhanced when stakeholder ambiguity is considered alongside other closely related features, such as being embedded in a local geographic community and informal familial care-based organisational cultures. Our findings also highlight the fragility of smaller VSOs. We argue that this combination of distinctiveness and fragility creates a tension for social policy makers, many of whom recognise the value of smaller VSOs and the risks that they face but must weigh this against a requirement to allocate resources for statutory services as effectively as possible.

This study exrimined whether medium is an important factor in arousal of cririosity about morbid events. A total of 132 rrndergraduote students mad or viewed six reports: one good news story, one neutral story and four morbid stories. One group read print versions only, while a second group saw photographic imriges depicting these events nnd a third group viewed televised versions of these events. Subjects rated stories on u IOO-point thermometer rating scale measuring attraction-rrversion. Television news reports, somewhat contrury to expectations, did not evoke more curiosity about morbid events thrin did print or still photo accoiints. Television mny be getting (I bad rap, the authors suggest.