Giving Compass' Take:

• In this NPC story, Dan Corry discusses the thing that matters most to UK citizens -- which may be forgotten in Brexit discussions: Individual health.

• Social prescribing is a way for health agencies to refer patients to a "link worker," who will take a holistic approach to individual health, connecting people to community groups and addressing systemic health problems. How can the philanthropic sector facilitate the implementation of this practice?

• To learn more about creative solutions to student health needs, click here.

While we in the policy world sink deeper and deeper into the mire of Brexit and new political groupings, it is important to remember that most people continue to go about their lives entirely normally.

While we are worried about stockpiling and body bags, normal people are worried about normal things, and for most of us, this means our health. Health provision may have slipped down the list of the public’s key concerns, but it still dominates much of our lives.

It is easy to argue that money is the most important thing, as the moving of public health back to local government a few years ago illustrates. This was a good move, as it gave health prevention powers to the body that has most say over the general factors that contribute to good health in a locality. But, undermined by the massive cuts to local government funding, the value of that switch is now being questioned.

While funding is vital, it is not everything. One big shift in the Long Term Plan, even if not generously funded, is the full-on embracing of social prescribing. This is a very different approach to dealing with the factors which keep people healthy through their lives and the social responses which help people maintain and manage their mental and physical health.

A new approach, and a radically different one, it is however true that there is not yet much hard evidence to support social prescribing. It is argued that it helps people in the longer-term and reduces the stress on clinical services, but there is some scepticism in the medical world.

Read the full article about Brexit's effect on health by Dan Corry at NPC.