Fishing prescribed by NHS to treat anxiety and depression in UK first

Fishing is being prescribed by the NHS for the first time in the UK as GPs team up with anglers to help people suffering with depression.

Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust has become the first to pilot the scheme after partnering with fishing charity Tackling Minds.

Under the new initiative,GPs, occupational therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists in all health institutions can prescribe angling instead of antidepressants and anxiety medications.

On Monday, the first batch of anglers prescribed the new therapy took to the waterside in Blackley, Manchester with all kit and coaching provided by Tackling Minds.

Organisers at the charity hope the scheme will be rolled out nationwide in the coming months as part of the NHS' social prescribing initiative.

Social prescribing, also sometimes known as community referral, is where patients are prescribed activities like dancing, gardening and book clubs to boost their mental and emotional wellbeing.

David Lyons founder of Tackling Minds, started the initiative after battling with alcohol addiction and anxiety disorder.

He said: "The whole idea comes from me getting back into fishing after about 15 years. I have tried about a million and one different medications and therapies.

"I've been through detox four times, and fishing has been 100 per cent more effective than medications or therapy. It has helped me massively.

"It's a form of mild exercise, so someone suffering from an injury can use it as part of recovery. Watching the float and the water is calm and therapeutic."

The not-for-profit organisation received £10,000 in National Lottery funding and financial support from Rochdale Council and the Angling Trust.

Each participant gets a qualified angling coach trained to work with people in vulnerable situations, and each group has support workers.

All fish are released after they have been caught.

My Lyons said he hopes to expand the organisation across the UK.

"At the moment we are concentrating on the local area, but we plan to expand.

"I have been contacted by health professionals throughout the country, as far as Ireland, and I'm in contact with other, similar, fishing groups.

"It's quite frustrating because there is nothing on a national scale yet. It is my vision to grab this opportunity to expand and that's very exciting, because I know there is a demand and know how successful it can be."

Fishing has attracted a new audience in recent years with the BBC series Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing - first broadcast in 2018.

The show features comedic duo Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse travelling across Britain in haphazard fishing expeditions while sharing the most poignant and amusing moments from their lives.

Its latest series attracted an average audience of 1.5 million viewers per episode with a fourth series set to be broadcast later this year.

Meanwhile the popularity of social prescribing as a tool to treat those suffering with mental health problems has soared in recent years.

In August 2020, the Government allocated £5 million to the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP), some of which went to a programme called ENO Breathe, devised by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the English National Opera.

The programme of singing, breathing and wellbeing was aimed at supporting and enhancing the recovery of Covid-19 survivors.

Social prescribing has also been endorsed by the Royal family with Prince Charles offering his public support for the practice in July 2020.

The Prince described it as an “immensely important and fast-developing field of the health service”.

The NHS aims to involve one million patients a year in social prescribing by 2024, according to Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard- the current head of the scheme.

Prof Stokes-Lampard said: “I would argue that a form of social prescribing has always existed. It’s what GPs, priests, hairdressers, bartenders, postmen and women have always done - which is recognising someone is missing something in their life.

“What we are doing with social prescribing is giving greater emphasis to the social parts of people’s lives and the impact they can have on health and wellbeing – and that’s why the NHS is interested in it.”