The New Economics Foundation set up a time bank - funded by the King's Fund - at the Rushey Green Group Practice in Lewisham. GP Richard Byng and his team decided to experiment with the time bank approach because they wanted to get away from prescribing for problems they knew were social rather than medical in origin.
The time bank was launched in March 2000 and now has more than 60 active participants, regularly doing visiting, dogwalking, baby-sitting, shopping or anything from writing poetry to accompanying blind people shopping. Doctors are already referring patients to the bank, especially in cases of long-term depression - because they find that taking part in the time bank can mean real improvements.