The Coalition has announced that it will continue the drive initiated by the previous Labour Government and work to establish an index of the nation's levels of wellbeing. We appear to be crawling towards a holistic rather than a monetary view of what counts in life - positive relationships, validation as an active member of a community, collective endeavour, shared values - the stuff that cash can't buy. But, in moderation, it can help to acquire.

Very slowly, the definition of what constitutes ‘success' is being reconfigured from the yuppy oodles of cash and drawers full of designer labels in the Thatcherite era of individualism to perhaps, for some, a more balanced, less consumption more community orientated view of what it means to live a successful life. This transition has been spurred on in part by events such as the excesses of the bankers and the consistently miserable ratings for the UK in a range of mental health and wellbeing league tables, especially those affecting the young. It has also been encouraged by the work of academics such as Lord Richard Layard; the happiness psychologist Daniel Kahneman and Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at the University of Warwick (Oswald calculated that a happy marriage is worth an extra £70,000 of income a year). No doubt, it will be further expedited by the arrival of campaigns such as the Movement for Happiness, launched next year but already attracting supporters internationally as well as domestically.

It is, of course, possible to be poor and happy. Indeed, a number of poorer countries register higher levels of wellbeing than the US and the UK. However, a modicum of money, some employment and the position you hold on the ladder relative to others are still factors that matter to a positive sense of wellbeing.

The English Longitudinal Study on Ageing (ELSA) for the past several years has charted the lives of a sample of the English population aged 50 and over. What is has found so far is that ill health, social isolation and loneliness all differed, in a graded way, with people's wealth. Less money was associated with being sicker, less functional and more isolated - factors in turn which deplete resilience and wellbeing. So, if money does matter, what's a Government to do in a period of austerity?

Limiting the economic impact of the cuts on those who already have the least obviously helps. But according to the work of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others, that is already failing to happen. So, that leaves an even greater responsibility on the Big Society to help people to feel better about themselves - against the odds. In this, the Government's obvious allies are not just community activists, volunteers, the civic sector and local authorities. GPs too will be required to play their part.

Wellbeing isn't yet available in a pill but once they become commissioners, responsible for contracting services as the PCTs do now, doctors will be in a stronger position than perhaps many realise to act as catalysts in the community to promote wellness, not just medicate the sick.

Health Launchpad at the Young Foundation has begun to work with clusters of doctors to encourage them to look at prevention, utilising social enterprises and the civic sector in the community. Almost 16 million people have a long-term condition in this country. Many have co-morbidity - several diseases in addition to the primary disease. These diseases may never be cured but, in many cases, they can be contained. The loneliness and isolation that acerbates them can be alleviated. The lack of exercise that feeds off depression can be addressed.

In Newcastle, for instance, a group of GPs prescribe a visit to Healthworks, a healthy living centre, excellently run by Sarah Cowling, a former nurse. Healthworks offers company, exercise, nutritional help, good food, enjoyment, training and activities. Health workers, recruited from the local community (and therefore no longer unemployed) do the valuable outreach work that encourages an individual to take the first step to making a difference in their lives.

 
A few years ago a group of GPs in the Healthworks hinterland carried out a survey. In the process, they discovered a number of men in their fifties and sixties who were far from happy. The men were overweight, vulnerable to diabetes, depressed and isolated - and they ventured into the GP's surgery only when they had reached a crisis; a crisis costly to the individual and to the public purse. In response, Healthworks set up an angling club and recruited some of these men. That led to a cookery club then a weight loss club and that gradually encouraged some of the new recruits to become active in Healthworks generally as volunteers: lives resumed rather than on hold.

Improving use of data means that a GP can identify individuals who are prone, for instance, to a fall, to depression or to other factors that may result in an unplanned visit to hospital. However, a medic's training, the way in which financial incentives for GPs are structured and the way in which many practices are managed, such as assigning five minute appointments per patient, often lead to the prescription pad and away from early prevention and intervention (it's astonishing that in spite of the increasing knowledge of behaviour change the NHS still allocates only 4% of its budget to prevention).

Some of the GPs with whom Health Launchpad has been working are interested in making a radical change and, as future commissioners, they will soon have the extra power to do so. But if, for instance, Dr Smith knows Mrs Jones is obese, seventy, lonely and diabetic with no relatives in the vicinity can he really make a difference to the quality of her life before a crisis occurs?

A short-term scheme called Partnerships for Older People Projects (POPPs) indicated that there could be another way. Over 500 POPP schemes in 29 local authorities worked to promote the health, wellbeing and independence of older people - providing activities and encouragement and seeing older people as assets not just a bundle of symptoms. The evaluation in 2010 found a 12% increase in health related quality of life, as well as a 29% drop in admissions to Accident and Emergency departments.

Health Launchpad's Social Entrepreneur in Residence scheme that embeds a person locally to develop the ventures and services that can impact on the health and quality of life of people of all ages (and therefore save costs on reduced use of unplanned hospital admissions, hospital beds and prescriptions) is following a similar route.

Of course, a GP's core business will continue to be diagnostic and medicinal - but if wellbeing is genuinely going to become a significant part of the body politic, a gauge to judge Government, then the average family doctor and commissioner is also going to have to learn more about the antidotes to loneliness, disengagement and the absence of resilience - and take action.