Every Saturday morning in thousands of parks in 22 countries around the world, hundreds of thousands of people gather for parkrun. Parents hold their children’s hands or push them in a pram, people bring a dog, older folk come with grandchildren, introverts wear headphones while extroverts move excitedly through the crowd. It’s free, fun, friendly, informal, and in the fresh air.

parkruns are volunteer-led, and the model is the same everywhere in the world: every week, forever, for everyone. If you’re feeling energetic you can run the traffic-free 5km course, or you can opt for a leisurely stroll, help as a volunteer yourself, or spectate and support on the side-lines.

At parkrun there is no commitment. The aim is to create an opportunity for everyone in society to be involved whenever they want to be.

This presentation will explore peer-reviewed research and patient and practitioner case studies to demonstrate how parkrun can be used as a social prescription to tackle social determinants of health, such as social isolation, loneliness, and physical inactivity. The support of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Royal College of General Practitioners and Irish College of General Practitioners has enabled to the development of the ‘parkrun practice initiative’ in Australia, United Kingdom, and Ireland.

‘parkrun Practices’ supports General Practitioners to build a relationship with their local parkrun(s), start a conversation with patients about parkrun, and signpost them to their nearest event. More than 2000 ‘parkrun practices’ are registered with this strategic initiative globally, and this presentation will demonstrate the benefits of parkrun as a national social prescribing opportunity that has a significant impact on patients and practice staff.

What was a social running event when it started almost 20 years ago is now one of the most important health and social interventions of our time.

1. parkrun is an evidence based social prescribing intervention
2. Walking and volunteering at parkrun have health benefits, running is optional
3. Prescribing parkrun is an easy first step for health care profesionals who are not familiar with social prescribing

Background
Potentially preventable hospitalisations (PPHs) often result from decreased access to primary healthcare services. Person-level socioeconomic factors are responsible for a significant number of GP visits. The culminative influence of disease burden, social factors and rurality is not well understood. Social prescribing (SP) is a way of linking primary care patients with support within their community. Overseas experience suggests SP is an emerging strategy for tackling health inequities and provides health practitioners with an additional pathway to address patients’ physical, psychological, psychosocial or socioeconomic needs. Isolated patients, or those with predominantly psychosocial or health literacy needs are suitable candidates for SP activities.

Methods
The Huon Valley Social Prescribing Pilot Project (SPPP) introduced a SP pathway into a general practice setting and measured the feasibility and acceptability of the SP model amongst GPs. Existing local community “hubs” were used to link general practice patients with community activities. Patients voluntarily participated in the SP referral pathway. Before-and-after surveys of GPs were used to determine feasibility and appropriateness of the SPPP.

Findings
The SPPP was delivered to 13 GPs in rural Tasmania. Follow-up surveys indicated that GPs found the SPPP an appropriate and feasible approach to increasing the use of SP in primary care. Impediments to full uptake of SP included time constraints during consultations, general uncertainty about SP and the quality of activities offered in the community. Potential benefits of the SPPP included an additional option for vulnerable patients, an easily reproducible model and high GP acceptance.

Conclusions
Implementing SP is seen as a feasible and appropriate way to assist vulnerable patients. The SPPP offers a model for SP implementation that could be reproduced in other primary care settings. Long-term data is required to better understand the costs and benefits of SP in the rural Australian context.

What is social prescribing?
How can social prescribing be incorporated into general practice?
What are the barriers to implementing social prescribing programs into general practice?

Transforming Medical Education in Primary Care
AIM
Singapore is undergoing a major healthcare shift with greater emphasis being placed on the role of General Practitioners to meet the challenges of an aging population with greater chronic disease burden. We explore the transformation our medical education department which is based in a public-sector Primary Care institution has made to deliver training and education that will meet the needs of the future.

CONTENT
We showcase the changing healthcare landscape in Singapore and describe the ‘4P’ framework that guide the changes we have implemented in our department to transform educational practices across undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education; namely Pedagogy, People, Place and Platform.
In undergraduate medical education, we will describe how we engage students to consider a career in Family Medicine and how we continue to innovate our student attachments to ensure fulfilling learning in Primary Care.
We will showcase how our postgraduate Family Medicine Training program continues to adapt its curriculum and assessments to ensure future ready Family Physicians.
We will describe our approach to ensure continuing medical education will meet future challenges that our physicians will face in light rapidly changing needs of patients that will require physicians to take a more active role in social prescribing, deliver more comprehensive care in the primary care setting and provide care for more complex and multimorbid patients.

GOALS
Attendees can gain insights to considerations and experience of our department which has keenly worked to ensure clinical service and medical education are deeply integrated such that educational activities translate to produce better clinical outcomes.
Our experience that links medical education across 3 broad trainee audiences verticals against our ‘4P’ horizontal framework will help medical educators future proof their own family medicine training programs.

1. How a 4P ( Pedagogy, People, Place, Platform) framework can assist medical educators in planning educational change and transformation

2. Innovations in educations across undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education in a Primary Care Setting.

3. Transforming clinical education is required to ensure future-ready family physicians