Thrive

Creating sustainable lifestyle changes for people living with long-term health conditions, via ‘social prescribing’.

  • Location

    North East Lincolnshire

  • Launch

    Aug 2018

  • Area

    Health, Wellbeing & Independence

Collaborators & funding partners

  • North East Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group

Delivery Partners

  • Centre4

  • Green Futures

  • CPO

Collaborators & funding partners

  • North East Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group

Delivery Partners

  • Centre4

  • Green Futures

  • CPO

  • Mila founded and leads Bridges Outcomes Partnerships (BOP). At BOP, we work to radically improve human services and environmental initiatives to improve outcomes for people and value for society. Programmes BOP supports are dedicated to empowering people across the world to improve their lives, in areas ranging from education and wellbeing to housing, child protection, employment and environmental protection. Mila is on boards of Positive Families Partnership, Stronger Families, Forward, North East Lincolnshire Thrive, Ways to Wellness, Education Outcomes Partnerships, along with other family, employment, and refugee support focused programmes.

    Mila is also a Trustee for Clore Social Leadership, organisation dedicated to providing social leaders with world class leadership development.

    Prior to Bridges, Mila’s career spanned public, private, and third sector. Mila helped create and run Education Generation, a crowdsourcing social enterprise focused on enabling young leaders in low-and middle-income countries to participate in some of the world’s most forward-thinking education programmes.

  • Conor, Director at Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, has been working with Bridges for the last 7 years – during which time he has designed and implemented a number of Outcomes Partnerships related to housing, employment and refugee support.

    He was previously a member of the Impact Management team at Bridges Fund Management, where he advised and supported investment teams on all aspects of impact management throughout the investment cycle. Before joining Bridges, Conor worked for a health services NGO in Ecuador, leading a project to set up budgeting and reporting processes. He began his career as a management consultant at Deloitte, specialising in financial analysis and process improvement.

    Conor holds a BSc in Economics and is a qualified Management Accountant.

  • Nicky is the Programme Director for Health, overseeing two social prescribing programmes that help people to access community support to manage their health and wellbeing.

    Nicky is passionate about supporting people and has a strong focus on collaboration and coproduction throughout her work. Having spent 16 years working in the criminal justice system for Probation, Nicky has more recently been working in Adult Social Care, managing prevention-based programmes and working strategically with partners across Health and the VCSE sector.

  • Michelle currently works within the BOP Health Portfolio as the Operational Lead for Spring Northamptonshire and Thrive NEL. Spring and Thrive programmes are community-driven social prescribing support networks, commissioned to help people better manage their health and wellbeing. Michelle’s previous roles have also had a strong people focus, including working for the Citizens Advice Bureau and managing a large team of Advice and Support workers in North East Lincolnshire, where she is currently based.

    Michelle is passionate about what matters to people: she believes that as many people as possible should have to opportunity to “live their best life” in a way that is meaningful to them. Michelle’s three daughters have now left home and continue to make her very proud! She is also an avid reader – can often be found with her nose in a book – and enjoys being creative in her spare time, with a particular love of interior design.

  • Luke works as an Impact Analyst, providing analysis to support performance management and measure impact. He works on BOP’s Social Prescribing programmes SPRING and Thrive. SPRING operates within the Northamptonshire area, while Thrive operates in North East Lincolnshire.

    Prior to joining Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, Luke worked as a Data Manager within the News Industry and spent three years working as an English Teacher in Granada, Spain.

    Luke holds a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Bristol.

Overview

Over 15 million people in the UK suffer from long-term health conditions (LTCs), such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease, with most experiencing poorer health outcomes and reduced quality of life as a result.

Thrive North East Lincolnshire (NEL) is a ‘social prescribing’ programme supporting people living with LTCs to create sustainable lifestyle changes and improved self-care habits. Thrive NEL’s strengths-based model focuses on addressing social and environmental factors to support these individuals on their journey.

The programme provides participants with a Link Worker, who helps them to engage with activities in the local area, creating new social groups where relevant, as part of a bespoke action plan. This engagement with the community helps participants to develop an improved attitude towards challenges, enables better access to specialist services, and helps participants to improve their lifestyle.

In 2023, this programme was renewed, enabling it to continue supporting individuals with LTCs to better manage their conditions and feel inspired.

Delivery innovations

An outcomes partnership has enabled a much more collaborative, flexible approach to problem-solving. This has facilitated a number of significant delivery innovations, including:

  • Having identified the need for an outdoor recreational activity group, Thrive tapped into Lincolnshire Co-op’s experience and successfully introduced a new walking group for participants, local to the area.
  • Thrive and other VCSE organisations have worked together to create ‘Garden for Growth’, using feedback from participants and with contribution from Thrive’s gardening group.
  • Thrive also provides digital support for participants with diabetes, to assist with symptoms management via online tools.

Outcomes

Over 2,000 people have started the programme since launch, with 92% of those engaged for 12 months improving their wellbeing. Those participating cost the NHS 35% less in secondary care compared to a comparison cohort.

  • 2013

    Starts to the programme

  • 1118

    improved wellbeing at 6 months check

  • 817

    improved wellbeing at 12 months check

  • £2.9m

    Outcomes achieved