Social prescribing link workers formed part of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme introduced into primary care in England from 2019. Link workers assist patients experiencing issues affecting their health and well-being that are ‘non-medical’ (e.g. lack of social connections, financial difficulties and housing problems). They give patients space to consider these non-medical issues and, when relevant, connect them to support, often within the voluntary–community–social–enterprise sector. We conducted an earlier realist review on the link worker role in primary care. We then carried out a realist evaluation, described in this report, to address the question: When implementing link workers in primary care to sustain outcomes – what works, for whom, why and in what circumstances?
