I first met Yvonne in 2020 whilst supporting NHS England Social Prescribing Team develop and implement the national social prescribing model across the country. Yvonne's level of dedication and passion for her work and supporting others is remarkable. She has a wealth of experience from a variety of community settings which together combines to create an exceptional leader. She is always willing to connect and share her expertise and learning.

Yvonne Clarke MBE is a nationally recognised leader in community health innovation and the founder and Managing Director of Pathways Community Interest Company (CIC). With a career dedicated to improving health and employment outcomes for underserved communities, Yvonne has become a prominent figure in the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector.

Awarded an MBE in the 2020 New Year's Honours List, Yvonne was recognised for her outstanding contributions to community wellbeing and social innovation. Under her leadership, Pathways CIC has pioneered holistic, person-centred approaches that address the biological, psychological, and social needs of individuals—particularly those facing complex health and employment challenges.

A key area of Yvonne's impact has been in social prescribing, where she has led the development of a model that was internationally recognised as best practice in 2018. This model integrates health and employment support, enabling individuals with long-term conditions to return to work more quickly and sustainably. Her work has informed national policy, including the Fit for Work Service and the Greater Manchester Working Well Early Help Services.

Yvonne has also positioned Pathways as a strategic partner to the NHS through its involvement in the Health and Wellbeing Group, ensuring that the voice of the VCFSE sector is embedded in health system planning and delivery. Her commitment to evidence-based practice has helped Pathways' programmes—such as HEALTHY Manchester—gain recognition for their effectiveness in supporting people with health conditions into meaningful employment.

Beyond her organisational leadership, Yvonne contributes to national conversations on health and work as a member of the MSK at Work Network, advocating for inclusive, community-driven solutions to public health challenges.

Yvonne Clarke's work exemplifies the power of the VCFSE sector to drive systemic change, blending compassion, innovation, and strategic insight to improve lives and communities across the UK.

I hope you enjoy reading.

Best wishes

Siân 

What Makes You Well?

For me, wellness is rooted in connection, connection to people, purpose, and nature. At Pathways CIC, our purpose is to reduce health inequalities and having spent my working life supporting others in finding their own path to wellbeing, I've come to realise that simplicity often brings me the deepest joy. With founding and running Pathways, a social enterprise, for the past 19 years, I'm constantly future-focused, balancing ensuring we are maximising our impact to reduce health inequalities with ensuring the sustainability of the organisation. But that comes at a cost of rarely being present or in the moment. I have found myself at times feeling like I helicopter over my own life. I have found engaging in activities that I enjoy helps me compartmentalize and separate from the pressures and often chaos of everyday life. And whilst at times it can be challenging, I realise that I deserve time and space which is reserved for me, for my wellness.

My own non-medical 'prescription' to keep me well includes a day outdoors with my hands in the soil, planning what to grow next, nurturing plants with homemade nettle fertiliser, or turning my compost, and gaining satisfaction from seeing it transform from discarded leaves and grass cuttings into 'garden gold'. Add in playing football with my eight-year-old grandson (who insists my football skills are "rubbish," yet impressively, still tries to coach me), and I feel balanced, present, and at peace.

This is my personalised care plan. Sustainable, low cost, low impact on the environment, but high impact on my physical and mental health.

Why Is Social Prescribing Important for the Future?

Social prescribing is more than a service. I believe it is transformative.
With up to 40% of GP appointments related to non-medical needs, we cannot expect clinical services alone to resolve issues rooted in community, purpose, and connection.

Since launching our formal social prescribing programme in 2015 in East Cheshire through the Prime Minister's Challenge Fund, and subsequently pioneering our Social Prescribing Plus model to support people off work sick to return to work to stop the onflow onto health related benefits in Manchester, Pathways has delivered real results through a multi-disciplinary team of link workers, health coaches, physiotherapists, psychological therapists, and Human Resources professionals, resulting in

• 85,000+ patients supported, focusing on 'what matters to them'.

• 910,775+ clinical appointments avoided.

• 63.8% reduction in GP visits for social issues

• 98% of patients receiving in-work support returned to employment without falling onto health-related benefits.

It gives me great pride that people often tell us, "I now know what to do, and I know how to do it." This demonstrates to me that we are empowering people, supporting people to unlock their intrinsic motivations, and increasing people's skills of how to improve their personal management of their self-care. With people increasingly living with more and more health conditions, social prescribing is so important for the future, supporting people to identify and access the tools they need to self-manage their conditions and improve their wellbeing.

Favourite Nature-Based Space?

Very simply, my own garden and my grandson's garden. They are full of life, lessons, and learning. I grow food and I am mindful of growing plants which will encourage pollinators to the garden, and I repurpose what others might discard. (My compost bins were once old pallets.) I take pride that I can see possibility where others see waste. I have also learnt from my grandson, you need to believe in yourself that you can improve and develop new skills. He patiently, and sometimes not so patiently, tells me time and time again, what and how I need to improve my football skills. I am consistently surprised that he does believe I can improve. And when I occasionally score a goal past my grandson, it becomes a moment of shared celebration and personally for me - wonder!

Our garden spaces are my green prescription.

Favourite Music?

I find peace and joy in music, from country and western to classical and musical theatre. I love to garden with music playing, though I'll admit I have no singing voice and never get the lyrics right, but I still have a go. Music for me is like gardening, it is both reflective and restorative.

Favourite Pastime?

Growing my own food is my favourite pastime. For me it blends creativity, sustainability, and experimentation. I'm especially fascinated by home composting, not just as a science, but as a metaphor for life. I've recognised that even waste has value when we give it time, attention, and the right conditions to transform. As a work in progress myself, this gives me further hope for self-improvement!

Your One Wish for Social Prescribing?

We know that social prescribing confirms personalised care by moving beyond traditional medical treatments, focusing on 'what matters to people', leveraging people's strengths, and addresses the wider determinants of health. My wish is that social prescribing continues to be recognised as more than just signposting, that its value is maximised and becomes embedded in every care pathway, from Primary and Secondary Care, including being embedded in Occupational Health and in staff wellbeing programmes. This is important because it will support us to achieve health equity for all the communities we serve. We already have the tools. Now, we need the commitment to let social prescribing grow in all corners of the system.

Leadership Tips for Building Social Prescribing Projects

• Start with people, not process.
  See the whole person, their strengths, networks, and values. Co-design services that reflect what matters to people.

• Foster innovation.
  Social prescribing isn't one-size-fits-all. Use it to drive creativity and close the health gap for underserved communities.

• Build equal partnerships.
  We need to reimagine relationships between communities, PCNs, hospitals, local authorities, and the VCFSE sector. Where everyone is truly an equal partner.

• Invest in SPLWs.
  Pathways has a 70/20/10 learning and development model reflecting our belief in learning through experience (70%), peer support (20%), and structured training (10%). We empower SPLWs with accredited and non-accredited training through our Personalised Care Training Academy.

• Measure what matters.
  Whilst national alignment on data frameworks and digital systems such as EMIS templates, SNOMED codes is improving, to prove social prescribing makes a difference needs much more than this. When we listen to communities, they say what matters to them is "feeling heard" and/or "being less isolated". I do recognise that this is much harder to quantify, but measuring the impact of personalised care sits at the heart of what we do. We must value these outcomes.

• Fund the ecosystem.
  We do need to invest in the VCFSE sector. Social prescribing depends heavily on community assets, yet the sector faces unstable funding, leading to gaps in service availability. Being completely candid, social prescribing can only be as effective as the ecosystem they refer into. We must be committed to push for a sustainable funding model for VCFSE services which is critical to sustain and expand social prescribing.

• Personalised care as business as usual.
  Whilst I recognise that personalised care should be business as usual. I have personally witnessed that there is still a lack of understanding of what personalised care is, and how to implement this across the system. We need to ensure that the social prescribing service can truly show that the relationship between practitioner and patients has shifted, and that patients feel we are all working together. We need to ensure that there is true shared decision-making within social prescribing and wider multi-disciplinary working with patients. We need to ensure that no decisions are made about patients without them, and we empower patients to have the confidence to make informed choices, where patients are truly at the heart of discussion about their health and wellbeing.

Who Has Influenced You Most?

Without a doubt, Dame Carol Black has influenced me significantly. Dame Carol has worked tirelessly to develop groundbreaking work at the intersection of health, work, and wellbeing, particularly in championing the idea that work is a health outcome, and that employment, when good, contributes meaningfully to people's mental and physical wellbeing. I believe she has reframed the discussion regarding work and health is focused on prevention, person-centred and on long-term wellbeing. She has championed health equity, showing how structural factors such as poverty and lack of opportunity drive long-term health harms. She has consistently advocated for joined up, community-based responses, many of which align with personalised care and social prescribing values. Though not always labelled as such, many of her ideas including holistic, multidisciplinary, community-based interventions which has laid the groundwork for social prescribing. Her work has shaped our Pathways health, work and wellbeing programmes including social prescribing.

Final Advice for Others Working in This Space:

Trust takes time, especially in communities who've felt unheard or underserved who often suffer the greatest health inequalities. Across the system we need to understand consistently, that social prescribing isn't signposting, it's transformational. Social prescribers do signpost, but it is so much more than that. Whilst not a quick fix, but to maximise outcomes, social prescribers need time to build that trust in communities, and gain understanding of what matters to them.