By Mike Farrar, Chair of ukactive
Ok, hands up if you’ve been part of a conversation, in your working life, to help the country and the NHS understand and exploit the benefits of a physically active nation on our economy and the demands for health and care? As I thought, not a soul reading this has their hands down!
So why haven’t we managed to get the perfect marriage we all know from the evidence we should have? Naivety, misplaced trust in common sense, inability to influence priorities, the wrong level of connection, an NHS culture of treatment over prevention, lack of visionary leadership from government and its agencies? I could go on and on.
But instead, I will give you some hope. Last week in Sheffield ukactive convened a unique group of senior leaders from the NHS, the Government, the physical activity sector, active partnerships, political advisors and system suppliers at the Olympic Legacy Park to help design the first ever ICS blueprint for the relationship between the NHS and the physical activity sector.
This was no talking shop but the opportunity to establish the platform for a comprehensive ICS approach to embedding physical activity into their health and care strategy and priorities for expenditure. The ‘blueprint’ (set out below) is designed to articulate the ‘how’ to underpin and actually deliver, in practice, Wes Streeting’s commitment to shift the NHS from sickness to prevention – at least with respect to physical activity.
Blueprint: The components of the optimal relationship
- Coordinate governance and oversight at the most senior level.
- Establish an effective partnerships and networks at place and local neighbourhood level (to supercharge opportunities such as social prescribing).
- Establish routine data sharing between the sectors.
- Deliver evidence-based physical activity programmes in prevention, and treatment and care pathways (in mental, physical and social care – standardised and delivered reliably).
- Deliver specific support to the elective recovery programme (working with both public and private sector providers).
- Create opportunities for productivity/economic/workforce growth and employment opportunities (including return to work and reduction in short- and long-term sickness absence).
- Commit to a shared approach to physical activity promotion, communication and campaigning.
- Develop existing small and partial interventions into comprehensive, financially sustainable programmes available and accessible to the whole ICS population.
So, watch this space. The leaders who discussed these areas at our meeting in Sheffield have agreed to work together to drive this shared blueprint. This work, once implemented will emerge and inform the Government’s 10-year vision for the NHS, support growth in the economy through reducing sickness absence, and longer-term economic inactivity, creating local jobs, reducing waiting times for care and improving health outcomes within existing budgets.
A perfect marriage foreshadowed in Sheffield? Get your new hats ready!
Mike Farrar CBE, FRCGP, FRCP, is former CEO of the NHS Confederation, Northwest SHA, national Tsar for Sport and Health, and current Chair of ukactive.
To find out more about this work, email info@ukactive.org.uk
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