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Alliance and ukactive launch Physical Activity and Health report

The Sport and Recreation Alliance and ukactive have launched Physical Activity and Health: Working Together to get the Nation Moving. This new report explores the current public health landscape in England and how the sport, recreation and physical activity sector can work alongside health to get more people active, more often.

Front page of report

The report sets out a number of key policy recommendations to ensure that both national and local strategies and practice encourage and facilitate joined-up working to help more people to be active.  

In addition, the report contains a summary of the health service commissioning process, case studies of good practice and top tips on how to engage with organisations in the health sector from experts including Public Health England and Sport England. The report was launched at a breakfast briefing hosted by the Alliance’s corporate partner Gateley PLC. During the briefing, attendees heard from:

  • Dr Justin Varney, National Lead for Adult Health and Wellbeing, Public Health England
  • Sarah Ruane, Strategic Health Lead, Sport England
  • Lara Lill, Head of Health and Wellbeing, Amateur Swimming Association
  • Andy Fairhurst, Public Health Programme Manager, Kent County Council

The briefing included a Q&A session which saw a lively debate amongst attendees on how best to embed sport and physical activity in health commissioning and how organisations in the sport, recreation and physical activity sector can better engage with their counterparts responsible for public health provision to deliver the outcomes in the Government’s Sporting Future strategy.

Emma Boggis, CEO of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, said:

“Working together to get the nation moving demonstrates how the sport, recreation and physical activity sector, working in partnership with health professionals, can play a key role in tackling inactivity. We need to build on positive developments, such as the Government’s Sporting Future strategy which sets physical and mental wellbeing as key outcomes, and work together to put sport and physical activity front and centre when designing solutions for the major public health issues we face.
“We are pleased to have worked with ukactive on this report and we hope our members and partners find it a valuable resource to support further engagement with health professionals and commissioning groups to help get more people moving more often.”

Steven Ward, Executive Director at ukactive, commented:

“The public health landscape has become so crucial for members of ukactive and the Sport and Recreation Alliance, therefore we are delighted to be able to present today a new resource which will support our members to understand and work with the health sector to get more people, more active.  Over recent years there has been a fundamental shift in the priorities of local and central government towards highlighting health outcomes of the work that we do, so it is essential that we support each other and our members to work effectively with this sector to get the best results possible."

You can download the report on the Sport and Recreation Alliance website