Funding crisis for the Glasgow Community Link Worker Programme – ALLIANCE responds

The Glasgow Community Link Workers Programme is to be cut by a third. This cut will badly affect the people who need it most.

Community Link Workers are based in GP practices in the most deprived areas of Glasgow.  They offer help to people facing issues that impact their health and wellbeing such as poverty, loneliness and isolation, housing, debt and abuse.

As well as the direct benefit that Link Workers bring to the people they work with, they are an integral part of the primary care team, alleviating the pressure on other primary care services. This funding cut will make it harder for people to get appointments with their Links Worker, leading to poorer health and wellbeing, and increased load on GPs and the rest of the NHS.

In January this year, The Health Foundation carried out an independent review of health and health inequalities in Scotland.  The review found that people living in the most deprived areas are being left behind, and that there was a 24-year gap in the time spent in good health between people living in the most and least deprived areas.

The Link Worker Programme was developed 10 years ago by the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) and GPs to address health inequalities.

Dr Susan Langridge, General Practitioner, Possilpark and Milton Cluster Quality Lead said:            

“My practice has been part of the CLW project since its pilot inception. My patients and team have experienced the positive impact of having a full-time CLW embedded within the practice. The continuity of care the service provides combined with strong ties to local third sector services is essential to the care of patients in the most deprived areas of Scotland. I believe having a CLW has increased GP capacity through redirection of inappropriate appointments and helped the most vulnerable patients navigate through an increasingly complicated welfare and housing system.”

Susan Young, Chief Officer of Operations at the ALLIANCE said:

“Community Link Workers are an essential lifeline for people in some of the most deprived areas of Glasgow, helping people to access services that improve their health and wellbeing.  To cut this essential service now, will only further widen health inequalities, and we urge decision makers to reverse these cuts.”

1. Glasgow HSCP Tender for Community Link Workers Programme;
   https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=AUG485391
   There are currently 69.8 full time equivalent posts all up for renewal.  The tender documents issued on 7 August 2023 is only seeking to replace 42 of them.

2. The Links Worker Programme was development by the ALLIANCE and GPs at the Deep end https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/healthwellbeing/research/generalpractice/deepend/#introduction

3. Health Foundation report – Leave no one behind: the state of health and health inequalities in Scotland published January 2023.  https://health.org.uk/publications/leave-no-one-behind

4. Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) https://www.alliance-scotland.org.uk/about-the-alliance/

During the ten years of delivering this service, the ALLIANCE has extensive evidence of the positive impact that Links Workers have on both the Deep End GP practices in which they are based, and on the people in the communities they support. 

Since 2014, the ALLLIANCE Community Links Practitioners have been, supporting thousands of individuals in some of our most deprived communities with social issues.  The role an integral part of the Primary Care team, offering unlimited support and signposting to a range of services, including social security, food banks, third sector and community groups.

This year alone the ALLIANCE’s Glasgow Links Workers received 8,700 referrals and 31,700 appointments. Each referral made to a links worker and people supported reduced the workload on GPs and provided much needed support to people in areas of some of the highest socio-economic deprivation in the country.

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