Care Navigation, Signposting and Social Prescribing: How Do They Differ, and How Could They Work Together in Viet Nam?

Care Navigation, Signposting and Social Prescribing: How Do They Differ, and How Could They Work Together in Viet Nam?

Category: Implementation & Practice

When people need help beyond a clinical consultation, several terms are often used: signposting, care navigation, social prescribing, referral, case management and sometimes patient navigation. They can sound interchangeable, and in practice their boundaries often overlap. But they are not necessarily doing the same job.

This distinction matters for Viet Nam. If every request for non-clinical support is described as social prescribing, the concept can become so broad that it loses meaning. If social prescribing is reduced to giving someone the name of a community service, however, its person-centered and relational elements can disappear. Care navigation cuts across this landscape, but even that term does not have a single internationally agreed meaning.

The most useful question may therefore not be which label is universally correct. It is what kind of help a person needs to reach the right support, how much assistance they need along the way, and which role is appropriately equipped to provide it.

The terminology is less settled than it may appear

Internationally, there is no single taxonomy that neatly separates all navigation roles. A 2025 umbrella review synthesized 26 reviews covering 824 unique primary sources and identified 78 different role titles across models operating at the interface of health and social care. These included patient navigators, link workers, care coordinators, case managers, social prescribers, intermediaries and health mediators. Navigation, person-centered support and helping people build their capacity for self-management overlapped across these role categories.

The same complexity appears in the Western Pacific. A 2026 scoping review identified 42 peer-reviewed studies and 13 additional grey-literature sources. Among the peer-reviewed studies, only nine explicitly described the intervention as social prescribing; others used terms such as community intervention, care navigation, integrated care and health promotion. Models also differed substantially in their funding, target populations, delivery arrangements and referral processes. Only one of the 42 peer-reviewed studies was from Viet Nam.

It would therefore be misleading to present signposting, care navigation and social prescribing as three universally standardized services with fixed boundaries. They are better understood as related functions and approaches whose scope depends on the health system, setting, workforce, available community resources and the needs of the person.

There are, nevertheless, useful distinctions.

Signposting is usually the lightest-touch connection

Signposting generally means helping someone identify where they can obtain relevant information, services or support. In a straightforward situation, that may be all that is needed.

NHS England describes active signposting as a light-touch approach in which existing staff use directories and local knowledge to provide information about appropriate community groups and services. It is particularly suitable when, after receiving that information, a person can make the connection for themselves. NHS England describes this approach as complementary to social prescribing rather than a replacement for it.

For example, someone may ask whether there is a local walking group, a group for older adults, a community exercise program or a source of practical advice. If the need is clear, an appropriate resource exists and the person is comfortable contacting it independently, accurate information may be sufficient.

Good signposting is still more than handing someone an outdated telephone number. The information needs to be reasonably current, relevant and understandable. A service that has closed, cannot accept new participants, is unaffordable or has eligibility requirements that the person does not meet is not a useful destination simply because it appears in a directory.

Signposting generally does not involve a prolonged exploration of the person's goals or continuing assistance to establish the connection. When someone needs more support than that, care navigation or a social prescribing approach may become relevant.

Care navigation helps people find their way through complexity

Care navigation usually involves more active help in finding the right service or moving through a pathway. Depending on the setting, this may include clarifying what help is needed, identifying appropriate options, helping overcome access barriers, coordinating appointments or referrals, explaining next steps and supporting movement between different parts of care.

The term itself is broad. NHS England's current general-practice guidance explicitly acknowledges that care navigation means different things in different contexts and is sometimes used interchangeably with signposting, triage or digital triage. In that guidance, care navigation covers processes through which a person's request is understood, assessed and allocated to the most suitable person, team or service. The current version was last updated in October 2025.

International evidence shows even greater variation. Patient navigators may assist with appointments, logistics and education; link workers may focus more strongly on referral-based navigation and supporting self-management; and other roles may span healthcare, social care and community services. The 2025 umbrella review found substantial overlap in both titles and responsibilities.

This is why care navigation should not automatically be treated as another name for social prescribing. A navigator might help someone move between hospital departments, understand follow-up arrangements after discharge or access rehabilitation. These are valuable navigation functions, but they are not necessarily social prescribing.

At the same time, navigation can be part of social prescribing when someone needs help identifying, accessing or staying connected with appropriate non-clinical community support.

Social prescribing adds a stronger focus on what matters and community connection

WHO defines social prescribing as a means of connecting people with non-clinical services in the community to improve health and well-being. Its Western Pacific toolkit was designed to help organizations introduce social prescribing at community level and includes materials that can be adapted to local context rather than requiring one universal delivery model.

In the NHS England link-worker model, social prescribing generally goes beyond simply providing information. Link workers give people time to explore what matters to them and help them connect with community groups and services that may address practical, social and emotional needs affecting their health and well-being.

That relational element matters. Someone may know that community support exists but still be unable to use it. They may be socially isolated, uncertain about what would actually help, lacking confidence after illness, caring for another person, experiencing financial pressure, facing transport barriers or managing several problems at the same time. Giving that person several telephone numbers may provide information, but it may not create a meaningful connection.

Social prescribing can therefore include navigation and signposting, but its distinctive emphasis is usually the person-centered connection between health and well-being needs and relevant non-clinical community support, rather than navigation through healthcare alone.

This distinction should not be made too rigid. Social prescribing itself varies internationally, ranging from structured link-worker pathways to less formal community-based models. Evidence from the Western Pacific shows considerable diversity in terminology, workforce, funding, referral arrangements and community involvement.

These functions overlap rather than forming a fixed ladder

It can be tempting to think of signposting, care navigation and social prescribing as progressively more intensive stages. In practice, that is too simple. Care navigation can occur entirely within healthcare, across healthcare and social services, or between healthcare and community resources. Social prescribing may itself involve both signposting and navigation. A person's need for support may also change over time.

A more useful principle is proportionate support.

Consider an older person who asks a healthcare professional where to find a suitable local exercise group and feels confident contacting it independently. Accurate signposting may be enough. Another person has recently left hospital, has several follow-up appointments, limited mobility and difficulty understanding which service is responsible for different parts of their care. Their central need may be navigation across clinical, rehabilitation and community services.

A third person lives with a long-term condition, has gradually become socially isolated and says that life has lost structure since retirement. They are unsure what kind of community support would be meaningful. Here, a social prescribing conversation may add something different because the starting point is not simply “Which service do you need?” but “What matters to you, and what might help?”

Someone else may disclose severe depression, violence or abuse, acute medical deterioration or another serious risk during any of these conversations. That person should not simply be moved further along a community pathway. Depending on the circumstances, appropriate clinical care, professional social work, protection services or emergency response may be required.

The aim is therefore not to place everyone into the same pathway. It is to match the response to need, risk, complexity, personal preference and the person's ability to navigate for themselves.

Why this distinction matters in Viet Nam

Viet Nam is working within a different institutional environment from England, where social prescribing has been incorporated into NHS personalized-care and primary-care arrangements. A Vietnamese model should therefore not be built simply by importing English job titles or referral structures.

The Western Pacific evidence reinforces the importance of local adaptation. The 2026 review found substantial differences across countries in how community interventions were funded, organized and connected with healthcare. It also identified variation in referral pathways, workforce arrangements, community capacity and policy integration. With only one of the 42 peer-reviewed studies coming from Viet Nam, the local evidence base remains very limited.

But Viet Nam is not starting from zero. Existing health and social systems already perform functions related to navigation. Healthcare professionals refer people between services. Hospital social-work functions assess psychological and social needs and connect people with appropriate forms of support. Community organizations, local services and informal networks already provide different forms of practical help, participation and social connection.

The task is not to rename all of these activities social prescribing. It is to understand where they already work, where people still fall between services and where stronger links between healthcare, social needs and community resources could add value.

Viet Nam has also strengthened its regulatory framework for social work. Nghị định 110/2024/NĐ-CP on social work has been effective since 15 October 2024. Thông tư 51/2024/TT-BYT, effective since 1 March 2025, regulates the implementation of social work in medical examination and treatment establishments. Thông tư 29/2026/TT-BYT, effective since 25 August 2026, regulates social-work practice and the updating of social-work knowledge.

These instruments do not establish a national social prescribing framework, and professional social work should not be treated as synonymous with social prescribing. They do, however, provide relevant Vietnamese experience and regulatory frameworks for related functions such as assessment, referral, resource connection, coordination and professional boundaries.

In hospitals, for example, a future social prescribing pathway could be designed to complement existing social-work functions rather than creating a parallel system that duplicates them. Some people may require professional social-work intervention. Others may only need reliable information, lighter navigation or assistance in making a community connection. The appropriate response should depend on the person's needs and the competencies required.

A practical approach for Viet Nam: different levels of support

For early pilots, it may be more useful to design functions before job titles.

A healthcare organization could begin by asking what happens when someone presents with an important non-clinical need. Can frontline staff respond to straightforward requests that only require reliable information? Is there someone able to help when a person cannot navigate available services independently? Is there a pathway for a deeper, person-centered conversation when the need is broader or unclear? And is there a clear route to clinical care, professional social work or protection services when risk or complexity exceeds the scope of community navigation?

Within such an approach, signposting can provide the lightest-touch response. Staff can use a locally maintained resource directory to help people who are able to make their own connection. Care navigation can provide more active assistance when the pathway itself is difficult: identifying an appropriate service, explaining options, connecting across organizations, addressing practical barriers and following up where appropriate.

Social prescribing can provide a more relational approach for people whose health and well-being are influenced by loneliness, limited social participation, practical or social needs, long-term conditions or other circumstances where understanding what matters to the individual is necessary before deciding which community support might be useful.

These functions do not necessarily require three separate workforces. In an early pilot, an appropriately prepared person may perform more than one function if their scope, competencies, supervision and escalation arrangements are clear. In a larger system, functions may be distributed across healthcare staff, navigators, social workers and community partners.

The organizational chart matters less than whether people receive the right type and amount of support.

Navigation is only as useful as the support people can actually reach

Discussions about care navigation can focus so heavily on the navigator that the community side of the pathway is forgotten. Even an excellent navigator cannot connect someone to a service that does not exist, has no capacity, is unaffordable or is inaccessible. Nor can a sophisticated digital directory compensate for weak community infrastructure.

A global scoping review published in July 2026 included 115 peer-reviewed empirical studies from 16 countries. Approximately 64% originated in the United Kingdom. The review identified relational continuity, personalized support, community capacity and meaningful engagement as important mechanisms, while socioeconomic disadvantage, unstable funding, limited community-sector capacity, workforce pressures and weak integration were among the reported barriers. Clinical and system-level outcomes were also more variable than many psychosocial outcomes.

For Viet Nam, developing navigation should therefore happen alongside community-resource mapping and relationship building. Local teams need to know not just that a service exists, but what it actually provides, who can use it, whether participation has a cost, how people access it, whether it has capacity and who can be contacted when difficulties arise.

This may be particularly important when a pathway starts in a hospital. Hospital teams may know clinical services very well but have less visibility of what is available in the community after someone leaves the facility. Building and maintaining those relationships is part of community-connected care, not a one-time administrative exercise.

Digital directories and referral platforms may help as networks become larger, but technology should support the pathway rather than become the pathway. Someone who simply needs an address or contact point may benefit greatly from a digital resource. Someone who is isolated, unsure what they need, digitally excluded or managing several problems may still need a human conversation.

Digital referral also creates information-governance responsibilities. Viet Nam's Law on Personal Data Protection No. 91/2025/QH15 and Decree No. 356/2025/ND-CP have been in force since 1 January 2026. Article 26 of the Law specifically addresses health information and requires the consent of the data subject during its collection and processing, except in circumstances provided by Article 19(1), together with compliance with other applicable personal-data protection requirements.

A social prescribing or navigation pathway should therefore define clearly why personal information is being collected or shared, what information is genuinely relevant to that purpose, who will receive it and which legal requirements apply. Community connection does not create an exemption from data-protection obligations.

The pathway should also consider what happens after a connection is attempted. If someone only needed information and can act independently, formal follow-up may add little. But where a navigator has actively helped overcome barriers, or where social prescribing involves a personalized plan, it becomes more important to understand whether the person actually reached the service.

A useful distinction for early implementation is between referral made, connection attempted, connection completed and, when relevant, support sustained. This does not mean every community interaction should become case management. Tracking should remain proportionate to the level of support, purpose and risk.

Failed connections can also provide valuable information. If a service repeatedly has no capacity, the resource directory needs updating. If people repeatedly cannot attend because of transportation or cost, the problem should not automatically be framed as individual “non-compliance.” It may reveal a problem in pathway design.

Viet Nam does not need a new label for every function

One lesson from international evidence is that terminology can multiply faster than clarity. The 2025 care-navigation review identified 78 role titles, while the Western Pacific evidence shows substantial overlap among social prescribing, navigation and related forms of community connection.

Viet Nam has an opportunity to avoid adding unnecessary complexity. A pilot does not necessarily need a social prescribing link worker, a care navigator and a signposting officer sitting beside one another. It needs clarity about functions: who provides accurate information, who helps people navigate, who has time for a deeper person-centered conversation, who maintains community relationships, who follows up when needed, and who responds when the problem requires clinical or professional intervention.

The title can come later.

This is also why social prescribing should not be built as an isolated new service. Its potential value lies partly in connecting what already exists more effectively while making visible the genuine gaps that require new capacity.

Building community-connected care rather than another referral system

The distinction between signposting, care navigation and social prescribing matters, but the purpose is not academic classification. It is to avoid both under-supporting and over-supporting people.

Someone who simply needs reliable information should not have to enter a complicated program. Someone facing multiple barriers should not be handed a directory and expected to solve the pathway alone. Someone who needs clinical or professional intervention should not be diverted into community activity simply because their problem also has a social dimension.

For Viet Nam, a practical approach would be to develop these functions progressively: build good knowledge of local resources, introduce proportionate navigation, develop person-centered social prescribing where it adds something genuinely different, establish clear boundaries and escalation pathways, and evaluate whether people are actually reaching support that is useful to them.

The three concepts can therefore work together without artificial boundaries:

Signposting helps people know where they could go; care navigation helps them find their way; and social prescribing can help them explore what matters and build a meaningful connection with community support.

Sometimes one of these is enough. Sometimes they overlap. And sometimes the right response is something else entirely.

That flexibility is not a weakness. For Viet Nam, it may be one of the foundations of a realistic model of community-connected care, connecting healthcare, social needs and community resources without assuming that every person needs the same pathway, the same level of support or the same navigator.

References

1. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific. A toolkit on how to implement social prescribing. Manila: WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific; 2022.

2. NHS England. Social prescribing – frequently asked questions. Current guidance on social prescribing, social prescribing link workers and active signposting.

3. NHS England. How to improve care navigation in general practice. Version 2. Published 4 August 2025; last updated 21 October 2025.

4. Wijekulasuriya S, Wahlstrom L, Lewis S, et al. Working between systems: an umbrella review of care navigator roles and responsibilities. Frontiers in Health Services. 2025;5:1632307. doi:10.3389/frhs.2025.1632307.

5. Lwin KS, Wong MSJ, Tan MH, et al. Organization and implementation of social prescribing in the Western Pacific Region: a scoping review. The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific. 2026;67:101714. doi:10.1016/j.lanwpc.2025.101714.

6. Kisa A, Kisa S. Models, implementation, and reported outcomes of social prescribing interventions: a scoping review. Frontiers in Public Health. 2026;14:1871347. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2026.1871347.

7. Government of Viet Nam. Decree No. 110/2024/ND-CP on Social Work. Issued 30 August 2024; effective 15 October 2024.

8. Ministry of Health of Viet Nam. Circular No. 51/2024/TT-BYT on the Implementation of Social Work in Medical Examination and Treatment Establishments. Issued 31 December 2024; effective 1 March 2025.

9. Ministry of Health of Viet Nam. Circular No. 29/2026/TT-BYT on Social Work Practice and Updating Social Work Knowledge. Issued 6 July 2026; effective 25 August 2026.

10. National Assembly of Viet Nam. Law No. 91/2025/QH15 on Personal Data Protection. Issued 26 June 2025; effective 1 January 2026.

11. Government of Viet Nam. Decree No. 356/2025/ND-CP detailing certain articles and measures for implementation of the Law on Personal Data Protection. Issued 31 December 2025; effective 1 January 2026.