Alison Leitch is a Scottish social prescribing leader, campaigner and changemaker whose work has helped shape the development and recognition of social prescribing across Scotland. I first met Alison when she was starting the Scottish Social Prescribing Network and was struck by her positive energy and determination.

Based in Edinburgh, Alison's journey into this field was born from personal experience of navigating health and social care while caring for family, and from a determination to help others find the support that she and her family had struggled to access. This lived experience has helped shape her raison d'être in social prescribing and community connection.

Through working in a number of grassroots roles in local communities, Alison has gone on to help manage the Edinburgh Link Worker Service, which started out as a team of 4 and has grown to 24. Scotland now has more than 330 Community Link Workers.

Alison has also been instrumental in building the movement for social prescribing nationally in Scotland. In 2021, she played a key role in establishing the Scottish Social Prescribing Network, volunteering her time to champion the approach and campaign for national recognition and a framework for its development. Her tenacity and collaborative approach helped bring social prescribing into political and policy discussions, contributing to ministerial responsibility and funding for the network. She continues to contribute to national advisory groups and the development of Scotland's Social Prescribing Framework.

For Alison, leadership is simple: if you believe in something, keep showing up, even when progress feels slow.

I hope you enjoy the read,

Sîan 

Always believe you can make a difference

by Alison Leitch 

My life changed overnight in 2011 when I lost my dad suddenly. The loss was devastating for our family. I gave up a career in banking in Ireland and moved home to become a full-time carer for my mum who had been diagnosed with early onset dementia a few years earlier.

Looking back, losing my dad didn't just change my life overnight, it changed the direction of it.

I was thrown into a world of health and social care that I knew nothing about, and no one seemed able to help me navigate it. I didn't know what help either of us needed, and no one seemed able to tell me what services were available. Too often, both my mum and I seemed to fall between systems because we were considered too young for many of the services on offer. So, I turned to our GP.

Every few weeks, I would turn up for my appointment. At every appointment, he'd offer me a prescription for sleeping tablets or antidepressants. He would listen for as long as I needed, but our appointments often ended the same way: we'd play pass the prescription across the desk and agree to meet again in a few weeks' time. This continued for a year until we hit a crisis point with my mum, and I finally accepted the prescription.

It was a battle to get the right support for my mum, but with a supportive GP and a creative social worker, we managed to keep her at home for two years. Given the pressures on health and social care today, I'm not sure we would have received the same support now. Even with a care package in place, there was no way I could have returned to full-time work. Ensuring the package worked was a job in itself, and I had to be available whenever it didn't, which was regularly. I often think of people who don't have someone to advocate for them.

Even before 2011, I'd become a little disillusioned with banking following the financial crisis. Combined with our experience as a family, it made me realise I wanted to help others in the way we had—and hadn't—been helped. I applied to study social work but in the end studied social sciences instead.

After graduating, my first role was as a Local Area Coordinator, helping people when they didn't qualify for statutory social work services. That led to a role as a Community Link Worker covering four GP practices in some of Edinburgh's most deprived communities following the Scottish Government's commitment to introduce 250 link workers. Nine years later, I now help manage the Link Worker Service, and there are now over 340 Community Link Workers across Scotland.

Through my link worker role, I met others working in social prescribing programmes, and together the six of us established the Scottish Social Prescribing Network (SSPN) in 2021. We gave up our time to champion social prescribing and advocate for it to be recognised as an essential part of health and social care in Scotland. We also called for a national framework to support its development.

In 2022, SSPN hosted a parliamentary reception at Holyrood. We invited Ministers, MSPs, government officials, clinicians, GPs, practice teams, third sector organisations, programme leads and, most importantly, link workers who shared their stories. You could have heard a pin drop during the case studies. That event helped secure social prescribing as a Ministerial responsibility and contributed to SSPN securing funding in 2023, allowing me to work on the network as part of my role.

The growing recognition of social prescribing has since led to a commitment to develop a Scottish Social Prescribing Framework as part of the 2025 Population Health Framework, and there are now officials within Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland working on social prescribing. While SSPN's work is currently on hold as that framework is developed, I continue to attend the International Social Prescribing Collaborative—still one of the best meetings in my diary—and I sit on the Scottish Government's National Community Link Worker Advisory Group, the Skills and Knowledge Framework Group, and the newly formed Social Prescribing External Advisory Group.

Colleagues from the National Academy for Social Prescribing and I have shared a long-term ambition to bring together a five nations event on social prescribing, and this is finally taking place in the autumn in Edinburgh. It's amazing what people can achieve when they work together with a shared vision.

One of the things I've come to value most about working in Scotland again is that it is small enough for relationships to matter. Over the years, I've found myself sitting in meetings with Maree Todd, the Minister responsible for social prescribing one day and discussing care home legislation with the very same minister the next. I was part of the campaign group that secured Anne's Law, giving care home residents the right to maintain contact with a named loved one should another pandemic or similar restrictions ever arise. It could feel awkward being at one meeting in a professional capacity and at the next as a concerned daughter. Maree assured me that we all wear different hats in our lives, and it is ok if there is an overlap. Accessibility doesn't guarantee change, but it does mean people can be heard, questions can be asked, and those in power can be held accountable. It has reinforced my belief that individual voices really can make a difference.

It has now been more than six years since I last sat in front of a patient, and the world has changed enormously in that time. I have recently shadowed a few link workers, and I am in awe of their compassion and dedication. Money is tighter, times are tougher, and people's needs are increasingly complex. But link workers still make a huge difference to people's lives.

At the same time, I see the third sector creaking under financial pressure, with services being cut and waiting lists growing longer—or closing altogether. Social prescribing cannot survive if there is nothing left to prescribe to.

I am hopeful that real progress is continuing to be made in Scotland, and I am grateful to colleagues across the UK and Ireland who have supported us in getting this far.

The same GP still looks after my mum, and we still have the occasional conversation. I often remind him of those appointments many years ago. We both agree that we had good conversations, but we also agree that what I really needed wasn't a prescription—I needed a link worker.

With all the goodwill in the world, he wasn't the right person to help me with everything I was facing. I needed someone who had the time to explore what mattered to me, who could guide me through carers' benefits, rights and assessments, and help me find the support that both my mum and I needed.

Recently, after a scare with my mum, I was speaking with a different GP who looked at their watch and asked me, "I have a full surgery. Do you want antidepressants, or do you want to be signed off?"

I wanted neither.

Almost fifteen years on from those conversations with the GP, that moment reminded me how far we've come—and how far we still have to go. 

About Alison:

Part of the world I live: Edinburgh

Occupation: Assistant service manager

What makes you well? Family, friends, music, and dancing

Why is social prescribing important? Sometimes what someone needs isn't another prescription—it's someone to listen, help them navigate what matters to them and connect them with the right support. Social prescribing helps people find those connections.

Your favourite nature-based space: The sea. Either in it or beside it.

Your favourite music: Anything apart from heavy metal and drum and bass. I am a walking 60's jukebox because I see the power of music with my mum.

Your favourite pastime: Live music.

If you had one wish for social prescribing what would it be? My one wish would be for three wishes, that every GP practice had a link worker, that the third sector was fully funded, and that the housing crisis was solved as this has become a health problem – Edinburgh was the first city in Scotland to declare a housing emergency. To quote Professor Sir Michael Marmot, 'what good does it do to treat people and send them back to the conditions that made them sick'. If someone doesn't have a safe, warm home, then anything else in life is going to be extremely difficult.

Which one person has most influenced you and why? My mum, she has taught me more than she could have ever imagined.

Any advice for others working with communities? Never judge. Whether speaking to someone with addiction issues or to the First Minister, we're all Jock Tamson's bairns.

What are your leadership tips? If you believe in something, keep showing up—even when progress feels slow.