Driving health and wellbeing through movement

Last week, I chaired a roundtable of leaders and experts at the House of Lords exploring how the NHS can better utilise movement and exercise to meet its current challenges.

The occasion was hosted by Baroness Amanda Sater, a committed advocate for young people’s participation in sport.

It was a rich and wide-ranging discussion with contributions from NHS England, MPs and peers from both sides of the bench, primary care and public health specialists, health charities and movement, sport and exercise organisations.

The importance of our personal experiences

I kicked off the conversation with the reflection that each person’s experience of movement, health and wellbeing is different.

Our experiences are impacted by the community we live in and how we engage with professional services, and they also depend on a wide-ranging, skilled and well-equipped workforce.

This reminded me that active people are the best advocates for getting active.

There was a strong echo of this point as we discussed how supporting the NHS workforce to get active themselves could be a significant way to unlock a movement to encourage patients to increase their activity levels.

Opportunities for change

Our national partnerships lead, Suzy Gardner, presented what we refer to as the three key opportunities for change – working with the NHS, changing attitudes to risk and making the most of physical activity to improve mental health.

In response to these, the group discussed:

• The need to work together more, to speak as one voice with a clear message.
• How GPs are reimagining primary care services.
• The need for training and development for health practitioners.
• The significant benefits and some of the limitations of physical activity for individual and community health.
• The opportunity to work locally and hyper-locally to create health and wellbeing services that blend primary care, community connection and opportunities to move more.
• The need for full participation of children and young people in driving change with us.

The premise of our discussion was that, given the strength of evidence, physical activity can be better utilised as a tool to help deliver key health outcomes and priorities, helping to reduce the challenges the health system is currently facing.

It was only a few weeks ago that we were celebrating the 75th anniversary of the NHS, and the  transformation and changes needed to enable it to weather the extreme strains it's under.

The UK Chief Medical Officers were most eloquent when they compared physical activity with “a miracle cure” because of all the illnesses it can help prevent and treat.

This is a reference we’ve used in the past in our work and it appeals to the core of our long-term strategy, Uniting the Movement.

We know that, even in small amounts, moving our bodies is beneficial at all stages of life, particularly for the most inactive individuals where the greatest health gains can be made.

We also know that individuals and communities want support, with one in four saying that they would get active if told to do so by their doctor or nurse.

And this is just the tip of a growing evidence base!

Social prescribing and sound advice from health professionals are key to shifting people’s habits but significant structural barriers remain.

Overcoming these requires all of us to be brave in designing services that cut across traditional institutional boundaries and keep people at their heart.

Working together 

At Sport England, we want to accelerate and amplify the work we have done with partners in this space.

Our resolve to build a coalition of allies that can help us advocate for the value and role of physical activity, to improve the population's health and to help reduce health inequalities is stronger than ever.

But this is not work we can do alone – we need trusting, long-term partnerships.

Our key priority moving forward is to work closely with partners and places to continue to understand the key policy changes required that can enable the right conditions for physical activity to integrate, particularly through local integrated care partnerships and boards.

It was clear in the room that we’re starting to build momentum for change and we finished the round table by committing to take action together.

We are really excited by the opportunities that lie ahead and will continue to evolve our approach and our coalition of partners to strengthen the connections between sport, physical activity, health and wellbeing.