Social Prescribing and Hospital Social Work in Viet Nam: Where Could Community Care Navigation Add Value Without Duplicating Existing Roles?

Social Prescribing and Hospital Social Work in Viet Nam: Where Could Community Care Navigation Add Value Without Duplicating Existing Roles?

Category: Implementation & Practice

Last reviewed: October 2026

Consider a patient receiving regular treatment at a provincial hospital in Viet Nam. She is worried about transportation costs and asks the hospital social worker whether financial assistance might be available. During their conversation, she also mentions something less urgent but important to her: she would like to return to a neighborhood reading group. She enjoyed attending before her illness but has lost contact with the organizer and does not know whether the group still meets.

The hospital social worker can help her understand relevant support options and coordinate assistance through existing hospital arrangements. Reconnecting with the reading group may also be straightforward if reliable information is available. But what if the group is outside the hospital's usual network, its contact details are outdated, or the patient would appreciate some practical help getting involved?

A community-based care navigator might be able to help. Equally, introducing another person might make the process more complicated without providing anything the hospital social worker could not already do.

This is an important distinction for Viet Nam. Hospital social work already has an established legal and organizational foundation, with responsibilities that extend beyond financial assistance and charitable support. Social prescribing also involves connecting people with appropriate community resources, and some international models use link workers or community navigators to help make those connections.

The two approaches have much in common, but they are not interchangeable. Nor does their overlap automatically justify creating another workforce or referral system.

For Viet Nam, the question is whether community care navigation could strengthen existing hospital social work arrangements by providing something genuinely useful where those arrangements have practical limitations. Any collaboration would need to begin with a clear understanding of what hospital social workers already do, what community organizations can realistically provide, and whether additional support would make a meaningful difference to patients.

Hospital social work already has a legal foundation in Viet Nam

Before considering a new approach to community navigation, it is important to understand the responsibilities already recognized under Vietnamese law.

Government Decree No. 110/2024/ND-CP on Social Work, effective from 15 October 2024, establishes a national framework for social work activities, services, professional practice, and related rights and responsibilities. It addresses activities such as assessment, counseling, intervention, case management, and connecting people with appropriate support.

Hospital social work is regulated more specifically through Ministry of Health Circular No. 51/2024/TT-BYT, effective from 1 March 2025. The circular applies to healthcare establishments licensed to operate as hospitals and sets out requirements for social work services, service delivery processes, intervention planning, and evaluation.

One administrative detail is worth clarifying. When the circular was originally issued on 31 December 2024, its document number omitted the year of issuance. Ministry of Health Decision No. 1975/QD-BYT, issued on 1 July 2026, corrected the designation to 51/2024/TT-BYT. This was a technical correction, not the introduction of a new hospital social work model.

Under Circular No. 51/2024/TT-BYT, hospital social work services may include identifying urgent psychosocial needs, supporting patients in difficult circumstances, explaining relevant healthcare and social policies, mobilizing assistance, and connecting patients with appropriate organizations. The circular also provides for social work intervention plans, evaluation, and referral to suitable support institutions when needs remain unresolved.

These provisions matter because they show that coordination with services outside the hospital is already part of the existing framework. A hospital social worker does not necessarily need a separate social prescribing program to provide information about an external service or arrange an appropriate referral.

The circular also establishes organizational responsibilities for hospitals. Each department, division, or unit must designate at least one staff member as a focal point for coordinating social work activities. Depending on institutional needs and circumstances, hospital directors organize social work through a team, department, or center.

However, being designated as a departmental focal point does not automatically mean that the staff member has the qualifications or responsibilities of a professional social work practitioner. Coordinating activities within a department and undertaking specialized social work assessment or intervention are not necessarily the same tasks.

This distinction is important when considering community navigation. A hospital employee coordinating a routine request, a professional social worker managing a complex case, and a community partner helping someone join a local activity may all contribute to the person's support. Their responsibilities, however, must reflect their actual competence, organizational arrangements, and applicable legal requirements.

Social prescribing should therefore be considered in relation to the hospital social work system that already exists, rather than introduced as though Vietnamese hospitals have no established responsibility for connecting patients with external support.

Hospital social work involves much more than financial assistance

In Viet Nam, hospital social work is often most visible when social work teams assist patients facing financial hardship, mobilize charitable donations, or help families understand administrative procedures.

These activities can make a substantial difference, particularly when financial or practical difficulties affect access to treatment. However, they represent only part of hospital social work.

A patient may be experiencing family conflict, emotional distress, housing instability, or concerns about personal safety. Another may have limited family support, difficulty understanding available benefits, or several interconnected problems affecting access to healthcare.

Responding appropriately may require professional assessment, coordination with healthcare staff, an intervention plan, and involvement of specialized services. Some circumstances require ongoing social work case management rather than a single conversation or referral.

For example, when a patient discloses suspected domestic violence, appropriate assistance may involve professional assessment, safeguarding procedures, and coordination with relevant protection services or authorities. Introducing that person to an ordinary community activity would not address those responsibilities.

Similarly, when someone requires professional psychosocial intervention or continuing social work case management, a community navigator should not independently assume those tasks without the necessary competence, authorization, and organizational arrangements.

This does not mean that hospital social workers only address complex needs while community navigators handle straightforward ones. People's circumstances rarely fit into such neat categories. A conversation about a practical difficulty can sometimes reveal a more serious concern.

The more useful distinction concerns professional responsibility. Hospital social work operates within established institutional and legal arrangements. A proposed community navigation function would need its own defined scope, with clear limits on what the person or organization providing it is expected and authorized to do.

The practical question is whether a need is already being addressed appropriately and, if not, what additional support would actually help.

What do we know about hospital social work capacity in Viet Nam?

Having a legal framework does not mean that every hospital has the same staffing, professional expertise, or resources.

A national survey by Pham Tien Nam and colleagues, published in Social Work in Health Care in 2025, examined hospital social work staffing across 676 central, provincial, and district hospitals in Viet Nam.

The researchers reported that the number of hospital social workers increased from 591 in 2016 to 1,605 in 2020. Nevertheless, they identified continuing challenges involving staffing arrangements, compensation, and professional training. Central and provincial hospitals generally had stronger social work workforce capacity than district hospitals.

These figures need to be interpreted carefully. Although the study was published in 2025, the workforce data describe the period ending in 2020. They do not establish the number of hospital social workers employed nationwide in 2026 or the current capacity of individual hospitals.

A more recent study provides another perspective on the support patients may need.

Vu-Hong Hanh and Nguyen-Thi-Kim Hoa, writing in Working with Older People in September 2026, examined hospital social work needs among 360 patients aged 60 and older at Thu Duc General Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. The survey was conducted in 2025.

Participants placed the highest priority on guidance concerning policies, insurance, and administrative procedures. Resource connections and support after hospital discharge were also highly rated, followed by psychosocial support and health education.

The findings reflect one hospital and a particular age group. They should not be generalized to all patients or healthcare establishments in Viet Nam, and they do not demonstrate that community navigation would improve outcomes.

Together, these studies provide useful context. Hospital social work capacity is uneven, and patients may need different kinds of assistance depending on their circumstances.

A large hospital with an established social work department may already have experienced personnel, reliable relationships with external organizations, and well-developed referral practices. Another hospital may have fewer staff or limited information about community resources beyond its immediate service area.

These differences matter when considering community navigation.

In some hospitals, improving staffing, professional development, and supervision may be more important than introducing an additional navigation function. Elsewhere, collaboration with a local organization may help hospital social work personnel access information or practical resources that are difficult to maintain within the hospital.

The decision should reflect the circumstances of the individual institution. Introducing another navigator should not become a substitute for strengthening hospital social work itself.

Community care navigation is a function, not an established new profession in Viet Nam

International social prescribing programs offer examples of how people can be supported in accessing community resources.

In England, social prescribing link workers help individuals explore what matters to them and connect with suitable activities, groups, and services. Depending on the model, their work may include practical assistance, helping people build confidence, and maintaining relationships with community organizations.

NHS England's Workforce Development Framework for Social Prescribing Link Workers, updated in July 2026 and published in August 2026, emphasizes relevant competencies, supervision, professional development, and effective participation in multidisciplinary teams.

These arrangements are informative, but they do not establish an equivalent professional structure in Viet Nam.

International terminology is not uniform either. An umbrella review by Wijekulasuriya and colleagues, published in Frontiers in Health Services in October 2025, examined care navigator roles across different healthcare and social care models.

The review included 26 reviews covering 824 unique primary sources and identified 78 different role titles. These were grouped into seven broad categories, including patient navigators, link workers, care coordinators, case managers, and social prescribers.

The researchers found considerable overlap in the activities performed by people working under different titles. Helping individuals understand services, navigate organizations, manage practical barriers, and build confidence were common themes.

This variation is relevant to Viet Nam because the word navigator does not, by itself, establish what someone is qualified or authorized to do.

Community care navigation is best understood here as a potential function or service approach that could be developed within an appropriate organizational and legal arrangement. It should not be described as a separately licensed profession, nationally standardized healthcare position, or professional qualification already recognized under Vietnamese law.

Helping someone obtain current information about a neighborhood reading group may involve ordinary practical assistance. Conducting a professional social work assessment, delivering specialized intervention, or managing a complex social work case involves different responsibilities.

The activities actually performed are more important than the title assigned to the worker.

This is particularly relevant as Viet Nam develops its professional social work framework. Article 47 of Decree No. 110/2024/ND-CP provides that, from 1 January 2027, social work practitioners covered by the decree must have a social work practice registration certificate.

Ministry of Health Circular No. 29/2026/TT-BYT, effective from 25 August 2026, further regulates social work practice and continuing knowledge development.

These provisions concern professional social work. They should not be interpreted as automatically creating a separate certification requirement for every person who helps someone navigate community resources.

Equally, calling someone a community navigator does not remove legal obligations that may apply if the person performs activities falling within regulated professional social work practice.

Any organization considering such a function would need to define the proposed tasks, determine which legal requirements apply, and ensure appropriate competence, supervision, and institutional responsibility.

Where could community navigation genuinely add value?

The strongest reason to consider community navigation is that hospitals and community organizations may have different knowledge, relationships, and practical capabilities.

A hospital social worker may understand healthcare-related assistance programs, social policies, and established referral services but have limited information about smaller community activities in neighborhoods some distance from the hospital.

A local organization may know which groups are active, how people can join, what they cost, and whether there are practical barriers involving transportation, accessibility, or registration.

For someone who wants to participate but finds it difficult to make contact independently, this local knowledge could be valuable.

Returning to the opening example, the hospital social worker could continue assisting the patient with financial and healthcare-related social concerns. If the patient wants help reconnecting with the reading group, a suitable community partner might check whether the group still meets, confirm participation arrangements, and provide current contact information.

The patient could then decide whether to contact the organizer herself or request assistance with an introduction.

Neither option requires the community navigator to take over the patient's hospital social work case. Nor does the hospital social worker need to remain involved in every aspect of an ordinary reading group's activities.

The additional contribution is specific: helping someone make a connection that would otherwise be difficult.

Yet the need for a separate navigator should not be assumed.

If the hospital social worker already has accurate information and can make an appropriate introduction, involving an external navigator may offer little additional benefit. Someone who is comfortable contacting the group independently may only need the schedule and telephone number.

Sometimes a reliable community resource directory or an established contact person would be more useful than creating another staff position.

There may also be circumstances where a direct relationship between the hospital social work department and a community organization is sufficient.

Community navigation is most valuable when it addresses an identifiable gap. It should not become an additional administrative step that every patient must complete before accessing ordinary community activities.

How could hospital social workers and community partners work together?

Collaboration does not require a rigid division between everything that happens inside the hospital and everything that happens in the community. It does require clarity about responsibilities.

Hospital social work personnel should continue to carry out the professional and institutional responsibilities assigned to them under applicable law and hospital arrangements. Where professional assessment, intervention planning, or case management is required, those activities should be undertaken by appropriately competent and authorized personnel.

Healthcare professionals remain responsible for diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation decisions, and other matters requiring clinical judgment.

A community navigation partner could undertake agreed practical tasks, such as checking whether an activity is available, explaining participation requirements, identifying accessibility arrangements, or facilitating contact with a suitable organization.

The receiving organization would remain responsible for delivering its own activity or service within its lawful scope.

Consider a patient receiving professional social work assistance with a difficult family situation. During their discussions, the patient expresses an interest in joining a local educational activity.

The hospital social worker may discuss whether a community connection would be useful alongside the existing support arrangements. If the patient wants assistance and the relevant information-sharing requirements are satisfied, the hospital could arrange a limited introduction to a suitable community partner.

That partner might then help the patient contact the educational organization. Meanwhile, the hospital social worker would continue any professional intervention that remains necessary under the agreed arrangements.

There is no reason for both organizations to create separate, competing case management plans for the same concerns.

The community partner also does not need access to every aspect of the patient's circumstances. Its task may be limited to helping the person join an activity.

However, the partners need to understand what should happen if new concerns emerge.

If a navigator learns that a patient cannot obtain essential medication, the issue should be directed to an appropriate healthcare service rather than managed through community activities. If suspected abuse or another serious protection concern becomes apparent, the navigator should follow an established escalation procedure instead of attempting to provide an intervention beyond their role.

An ordinary scheduling change at the reading group, by contrast, might be resolved by the community partner without involving the hospital.

These situations require different responses. That is why responsibilities need to be agreed before collaboration begins.

A referral should not automatically transfer all existing professional responsibilities from one organization to another. At the same time, successful participation in a community activity does not mean that the person must remain under hospital oversight indefinitely.

Once a practical connection is complete, and no further professional coordination is required, the person may continue participating independently.

Good collaboration should respect this distinction. Its purpose is to make support easier to access, not to turn ordinary community life into another form of hospital case management.

When might an additional navigator create more problems than benefits?

Even well-intentioned collaboration can become unnecessarily complicated.

A patient may be asked to explain the same circumstances to a hospital social worker, a community navigator, and the receiving organization. Several people may collect similar information or maintain separate records without a clear understanding of what others have already done.

A navigator may also refer routine questions back to the hospital because responsibilities were never properly defined.

Instead of improving access, the arrangement may increase administrative work and create uncertainty about who is responsible for particular tasks.

This risk is especially relevant where hospital social work teams already maintain effective relationships with local social assistance organizations, charities, or other support providers.

Establishing a parallel navigation pathway for the same activities may accomplish little.

A useful way to assess the need for an external navigator is to ask what additional capability the person or organization would bring.

Perhaps the partner has detailed knowledge of activities near patients' homes. Perhaps it can maintain relationships with local organizers or provide practical assistance outside the hospital.

If these capabilities are not needed, improving the existing hospital process may be the better option.

The patient's preferences also matter. Some people already have strong community relationships and do not need anyone to arrange an introduction. Others may prefer to receive information and contact the organization themselves.

A person should not be expected to accept additional navigation simply because it is available.

Likewise, an ordinary community organization should not be required to report every detail of a participant's involvement to the hospital merely because the introduction originated there.

Follow-up should be appropriate to the purpose of the connection, the person's preferences, and any continuing professional or legal responsibilities.

The best arrangement is not necessarily the one involving the greatest number of organizations. It is the one that provides the right support without making the person repeat unnecessary steps.

Privacy and professional boundaries remain important

Hospital social work may involve sensitive information about medical conditions, family relationships, financial difficulties, and personal safety.

An organization providing an ordinary community activity will rarely need access to a complete hospital social work record.

Viet Nam's Law on Medical Examination and Treatment No. 15/2023/QH15 protects patient privacy and the confidentiality of medical records, subject to applicable legal provisions.

The Law on Personal Data Protection No. 91/2025/QH15 and Government Decree No. 356/2025/ND-CP, both effective from 1 January 2026, also establish requirements relevant to the processing of personal information.

When hospitals and community partners consider exchanging information, they need to identify an appropriate legal basis, meet applicable consent and notification requirements, and limit disclosure to what is necessary for the intended purpose.

For an ordinary reading group, the organizer may need a participant's name, preferred contact method, and relevant participation arrangements. The organizer would not normally require medical records, financial details, or a professional social work assessment.

Agreement to receive information about a community activity should not automatically be treated as authorization to transfer a hospital record.

The referral process itself also deserves attention. Information may be exposed unnecessarily through referral forms, informal messaging groups, shared documents, or access permissions that are broader than required.

Organizations should establish appropriate procedures before sharing patient information, rather than assuming that a general agreement to cooperate permits unrestricted exchange of records.

Professional boundaries are equally important. A community navigator should not independently determine whether someone is medically fit for an activity, make binding decisions about eligibility for public benefits, or undertake specialized professional intervention without the necessary competence and authority.

When urgent medical needs, serious safety concerns, or circumstances requiring professional social work arise, the appropriate established services must take responsibility within their respective roles.

These boundaries are not obstacles to community connection. They help ensure that collaboration does not expose people to unnecessary risks or place professional responsibilities on individuals who are not equipped or authorized to carry them out.

What does international research tell us about collaboration?

International research offers useful lessons about how healthcare, social care, and community organizations can work together. However, it does not establish that introducing an additional navigator will automatically improve outcomes or make hospital services more efficient.

A systematic review by Itua and colleagues, first published online in March 2025 and subsequently included in the 2026 volume of the Journal of Public Health, examined interprofessional collaboration in social prescribing arrangements.

The review included 20 records, mostly involving programs in the United Kingdom. It identified recurring themes concerning shared understanding, professional relationships, communication, role clarity, and the challenges of establishing sustainable collaboration.

The researchers highlighted the importance of involving different stakeholders and building common expectations about how social prescribing arrangements should operate.

However, the included evidence was largely qualitative and descriptive. It did not establish that a particular staffing model produced better health outcomes.

The umbrella review by Wijekulasuriya and colleagues, published in October 2025, provides a related finding: care navigator roles often overlap, while the terminology used to describe them varies considerably.

This reinforces the importance of describing responsibilities clearly rather than assuming that a professional title explains what someone does.

For hospital settings, a systematic narrative review by Neadley and colleagues, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2025, offers a more directly relevant perspective.

The researchers examined 37 studies of hospital-based interventions addressing patients' social needs. Some interventions involved relatively limited assistance, such as providing information or resource lists. Others used health navigators to offer more sustained help connecting people with services.

All 37 studies were conducted in the United States.

The review found substantial variation in how interventions were organized and reported. Navigator responsibilities were not consistently described, relatively few studies reported outcomes directly related to social needs, and intervention effects were mixed.

These findings are relevant because they caution against assuming that more intensive navigation is necessarily more effective than a simpler approach.

They also raise questions about what navigators actually do, how they work with existing staff, and whether the organizations receiving referrals have the resources to respond.

None of these reviews establishes the effectiveness of a specific collaboration model between hospital social workers and community navigators in Viet Nam.

International frameworks can therefore help inform service design, professional boundaries, and coordination arrangements, but they cannot replace local assessment and evaluation.

For Vietnamese hospitals, the important question is not whether a model has been used successfully somewhere else. It is whether that model is appropriate for the hospital's workforce, patients, community resources, and legal responsibilities.

What might a practical collaboration look like in a Vietnamese hospital?

A realistic starting point would be to examine what the hospital social work service already does before considering an additional navigation function.

The hospital could review how social work personnel currently identify needs, coordinate assistance, and connect patients with organizations outside the healthcare system.

This might reveal that some services already work well. The social work team may have established relationships with organizations providing financial or social assistance, for example, while maintaining current information about ordinary community activities near patients' homes is more difficult.

In that situation, the hospital might benefit from better relationships with local organizations rather than a new staff position.

Where patients need additional practical assistance that existing arrangements cannot reasonably provide, a limited collaboration with a suitable community partner could be considered.

For example, a hospital social work team and a community organization might explore a small, voluntary referral arrangement involving community education, cultural activities, or other appropriate non-clinical opportunities.

The hospital would retain its assigned social work responsibilities. The community partner would provide agreed assistance with specific connections.

Before implementation, both organizations would need to understand which needs are appropriate for the arrangement, what the community partner can actually provide, and what should happen when a concern falls outside the agreed scope.

They would also need appropriate arrangements for professional supervision, safeguarding, complaints, information sharing, and accountability. Any requirements concerning organizational authorization, professional practice, research ethics, or access to hospital information would need to be addressed according to the activities proposed.

This does not mean every partnership needs a complex organizational structure.

A direct and appropriately documented relationship with a trusted community provider may be sufficient for some activities. More complicated cases may require stronger professional coordination or may not be suitable for community navigation at all.

The arrangement should be proportionate to the work being undertaken.

It is also important to recognize the limitations of community organizations. Some may have paid staff and reliable resources. Others may rely on volunteers, temporary funding, or activities that change over time.

An organization that can provide information about an activity may not have the capacity to accompany participants, offer continuing support, or respond to complex social needs.

Hospitals should understand these limitations before making referrals. A community partner should not be expected to deliver services it has not agreed to provide or lacks the resources to sustain.

The most appropriate model will depend on local circumstances, and in some hospitals the best first step may simply be to strengthen existing social work referral practices.

How would a hospital know whether collaboration was worthwhile?

A community navigation arrangement should be evaluated according to the problem it was intended to address.

If the objective is to improve access to reliable information about local activities, the hospital could examine whether staff and patients can obtain that information more easily.

If the purpose is to help people make contact with community organizations, the evaluation could explore whether those who wanted assistance were able to reach suitable services without unnecessary delays or repeated referrals.

The experiences of hospital social workers would also matter. A partnership that creates more paperwork, overlapping responsibilities, or repeated questions without improving access may not be worth continuing.

Patients should have opportunities to describe whether the assistance was useful, whether they understood the roles of the organizations involved, and whether the support reflected their own preferences.

Community organizations should also be able to explain the demands placed on them. An arrangement that transfers substantial additional responsibilities to an under-resourced partner may not be sustainable.

These perspectives provide a more meaningful picture than referral counts alone.

A small initiative might show that information about community activities has become more accurate, introductions are easier to arrange, or hospital personnel have better relationships with local providers.

It would not, by itself, demonstrate improved clinical outcomes, reduced hospital admissions, or financial savings.

Those claims require appropriate research methods and sufficient evidence.

For an initial collaboration, the central question is simpler: does the proposed navigation function help people in a way that existing hospital social work arrangements could not already accomplish adequately?

If the answer remains unclear, there is little justification for expanding the arrangement.

Building on hospital social work rather than working around it

Hospital social work and community-connected care share an interest in helping people address needs that extend beyond medical treatment. However, their contribution should be understood through the responsibilities they actually undertake, not through an assumption that they are different versions of the same service.

Viet Nam already has a legal framework for hospital social work. That framework recognizes responsibilities involving professional practice, intervention, case management, coordination, and institutional accountability.

Community care navigation could offer additional value where people need practical assistance reaching suitable community resources and existing hospital arrangements cannot adequately provide that assistance.

There may be circumstances in which an external partner has useful local knowledge, established community relationships, or the capacity to help someone make a connection beyond the hospital's usual reach.

In other circumstances, the hospital social worker may already be able to provide the necessary assistance directly.

Both possibilities deserve consideration.

Research from Viet Nam also suggests that developing the existing hospital social work workforce remains important. For some institutions, better staffing, professional training, supervision, and organizational support may be more valuable than adding another navigation function.

For Social Prescribing Vietnam (SPVN), the opportunity is to contribute to informed discussion, research, and responsible approaches to collaboration between existing hospital social work services and suitable community organizations.

This does not mean that SPVN currently provides professional hospital social work, individual care navigation, or direct referral services. Nor should social prescribing be presented as a parallel service system that hospitals need to establish simply because similar models exist internationally.

Any future collaboration would need to be assessed in light of Vietnamese law, institutional capabilities, available community resources, and the experiences of the people it is intended to support.

The goal should not be to introduce another professional title or involve another person in every referral.

It should be to make connections between hospital care and community resources work better where additional assistance is genuinely needed.

Sometimes that will mean helping a hospital social worker make an appropriate connection directly. Sometimes it may involve a community partner providing practical assistance beyond the hospital's usual reach.

When the situation requires professional social work, clinical care, rehabilitation, or specialized protection, those established services must continue to lead within their respective responsibilities.

For Viet Nam, responsible development begins by recognizing what hospital social work already contributes, understanding the gaps that remain, and considering whether community navigation can address those gaps without creating unnecessary duplication.

Community-connected care will be more useful when it strengthens the services people already depend on, rather than adding another layer of complexity to their experience.

References

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

2. Ministry of Health of Viet Nam. Circular No. 51/2024/TT-BYT regulating the implementation of social work in medical examination and treatment establishments licensed as hospitals. Issued 31 December 2024; effective 1 March 2025.

3. Ministry of Health of Viet Nam. Decision No. 1975/QD-BYT correcting the document number of Circular No. 51/2024/TT-BYT. Issued and effective 1 July 2026.

4. Ministry of Health of Viet Nam. Circular No. 29/2026/TT-BYT regulating social work practice and continuing knowledge development. Issued 6 July 2026; effective 25 August 2026.

5. National Assembly of Viet Nam. Law No. 15/2023/QH15 on Medical Examination and Treatment. Effective 1 January 2024.

6. National Assembly of Viet Nam. Law No. 91/2025/QH15 on Personal Data Protection. Effective 1 January 2026.

7. Government of Viet Nam. Decree No. 356/2025/ND-CP detailing certain provisions and implementation measures under the Law on Personal Data Protection. Effective 1 January 2026.

8. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific. A Toolkit on How to Implement Social Prescribing. Manila: World Health Organization; 2022. ISBN: 9789290619765.

9. NHS England. Workforce Development Framework for Social Prescribing Link Workers. Version 2, updated July 2026; published 13 August 2026.

10. Pham TN, Nguyen HD, Nguyen TH, Vu TMN, Le TT, Nguyen VT, Nguyen KL. Addressing shortages of hospital social workers in Vietnam: Findings from a national survey. Social Work in Health Care. 2025;64(1–3):34–49. doi:10.1080/00981389.2025.2456029.

11. Vu-Hong Hanh, Nguyen-Thi-Kim Hoa. Hospital social work needs among older patients in Vietnam: Priorities for a tiered service response. Working with Older People. Published online 23 September 2026. doi:10.1108/WWOP-09-2026-0129.

12. 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.

13. Itua I, Wetzlmair-Kephart LC, Greaves PJ, Wallace C. The role of interprofessional collaboration for social prescribing: A systematic review. Journal of Public Health. Published online 4 March 2025; 2026;34:1449–1468. doi:10.1007/s10389-025-02417-0.

14. Neadley KE, Shoubridge C, Lynch JW, Boyd MA, Poirier BF. Hospital-based interventions addressing social needs: A systematic narrative review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2025;69(1):107624. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2025.03.004.

Editorial and Legal Note

This article provides an educational and implementation-focused discussion of hospital social work, community care navigation, and potential collaboration arrangements in Viet Nam. It draws on international guidance, published research, and relevant Vietnamese legal provisions reviewed through October 2026.

Hospital social work is governed by applicable Vietnamese law and institutional requirements. Community care navigation is discussed here as a potential function or service approach, not as a separately licensed or nationally standardized profession established under Vietnamese law.

Under Article 47 of Decree No. 110/2024/ND-CP, social work practice registration requirements are scheduled to apply from 1 January 2027. Organizations considering implementation should verify the regulations in force at the relevant time, including any subsequent amendments or transitional provisions.

Any proposed collaboration should assess the actual activities involved, professional competence, organizational authority, supervision, referral arrangements, safeguarding responsibilities, lawful information sharing, and the capacity of participating community services.

The international studies cited do not establish the effectiveness of a specific hospital social work and community navigation model in Viet Nam. Any proposed implementation should be appropriately designed, monitored, and evaluated within the local context.

Social prescribing and community navigation may complement existing services but must not replace appropriate healthcare, rehabilitation, professional social work, mental healthcare, emergency intervention, or legally assigned public services.

Social Prescribing Vietnam (SPVN) is a development, education, research, implementation, and collaboration platform. Publication of this article does not mean that SPVN currently operates hospital social work services, provides individual care navigation, coordinates patient referrals, or exercises professional or regulatory authority over healthcare or community organizations.