The Story:

We explore how digital pathways can help identity and encourage interested referrals into participation quickly, while motivation is high – especially for people who face barriers to staying engaged.

Across active wellbeing, exercise referral and social prescribing pathways, there is often strong intent at the point of referral. But many services still see drop-off between referral, first contact, booking, attendance and longer-term engagement. That creates challenges not only for participants, but also for frontline teams, commissioners and partners trying to understand impact and improve outcomes.

Our interest is in how digital pathways can support better pathway design, not just digitise administration. We explore how clearer journeys, timely communication, easier booking and better visibility of engagement data can reduce friction, improve access and help services see where people are disengaging.

This is informed by examples across our customers work. At Parkwood Leisure’s Downham Health & Leisure Centre, a redesigned digital way of working reportedly helped initial assessment attendance rise from below 40% to a consistent 73%, while reducing admin time. At Active Tameside, better reporting and clearer pathway visibility have supported stronger uptake, more insight into referrals from areas of deprivation, and a better understanding of where engagement is and is not happening. We want to learn what works and how pathways can better support people, services and partners.