Published on: 08,Oct 2024

Millions more moving is our first policy report on how we can tackle inactivity by supporting people with long-term conditions to move. In this blog series, colleagues working in different areas of health and physical activity will be discussing themes central to the three policy ‘shifts’ the report calls for: leadership and accountability, movement embedded in healthcare, and movement as part of everyday life.

 

Mike Farrar, Chair, ukactive

 

In the year of the Paris Olympics, the goal to establish the UK as the most physically active nation in Europe must rank as the most important activity-based ambition the four nations have. As Millions More Moving sets out, there are huge benefits to be gained – far beyond striving to be top of the podium – by supporting activity among those with long-term health conditions. 

  

Along with excellent partners such as the Richmond Group, we at ukactive have the ability now to transform our nations’ health and support the recovery of the NHS in its post-COVID, financially challenging, current state.  

 

ukactive’s mission of ‘More People More Active More Often’ is more relevant than ever, with a new Government keen to move from ‘cure to prevention’ and in need of effective means to deliver on their intent.  

 

Why is it so important that physical activity sits at the heart of Government policy? Well, it’s because the evidence base for maintenance of health and wellbeing centres on encouraging an active population. This impacts both on the longer-term need for prevention of illness but also on the reduction of waiting times while improving outcomes from treatment. Crucially, also supporting both acute and longer-term chronic conditions.  

 

Adopting a strategy of developing a more active nation is also trending alongside the nation’s mood, rather than feeling like nanny state! According to Sport England’s latest Moving Communities report, the popularity of keeping fit and active through gyms and leisure is growing at pace, and its Active Lives Survey showed an increase among the general population of fitness activities, and especially among children and young people. If you visit your local facilities today you will see a huge age range, with gyms being used by young people through to older adults, dementia-friendly swimming sessions, and health programmes that align physical and mental support. This is a sector with universal appeal and an invaluable contribution to make, with facilities that, according to polling, more than 61% of people would be keener to receive support within than attending traditional healthcare facilities.  

 

There is also a rapidly increasing range of programmes targeted at long-term conditions and in many cases, funded by the state and accessed via social prescribing. These programmes are demonstrating their value in many areas of healthcare, from mental health, cardiac and musculoskeletal (MSK), to cancer, and diabetes (which along with heart disease are still our biggest killers and causes of disability).  

 

So, looking in more detail at the evidence for this, the presence of a local MSK hub, offering exercise programmes for those on waiting lists for joint replacements is creating a reduction in hip and knee sores, thereby taking people off lists completely, while in other disease areas such as cancer we are seeing evidence that physical activity programmes alongside treatments are producing higher-quality outcomes than chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery alone. 

 

The biggest question, therefore, centres on why are these programmes not available at scale in every community – particularly those with the greatest level of health inequality)? And what could be done to address this?  

 

Well, the truth is that government policy and structure has been too fragmented and too focused on cure through traditional means of care. This has got to change, not least because the historic approach is unaffordable and lacks anything like sufficient staff.  

 

So the Government now has a chance, and I would argue an obligation, to join up thinking across Government departments (DMSC, DHSC, DWP, HMT etc), commit to prevention (based on impactful, evidenced programmes), include the physical activity sector in their workforce plans and economic growth strategies (noting that sickness absence is arguably the biggest barrier to economic growth), and to integrate physical activity into all health and care pathways  

 

And finally, to work with the Richmond Group and ukactive to deliver our potential leadership of a healthy, happy and productive nation working at gold medal standard.