In this blog shared for World Cancer Day, Zoe Merchant, AHP Clinical Lead for the Prehab4Cancer Programme and Jack Murphy, Prehab4Cancer Programme Manager for GM Active consider physical activity as a tool for supporting people to prepare for and recover from surgery and cancer treatment.

Empowering healthcare professionals to promote physical activity to their patients is vital to supporting them to stay in good health and independent for longer. So, what stops health and care professionals from discussing physical activity with their patients?

Healthcare professionals face challenges in having conversations about physical activity. Time is often limited, and resources are stretched. There’s also no contractual obligation to promote physical activity as a key determinant of health, and some would often prioritise medication, either out of fear that exercise may exacerbate conditions or how information might be received by patients.

This is why nearly three quarters of GPs don’t speak about physical activity to their patients with 80% reporting being unfamiliar with the national physical activity guidelines. The answer to this is better and more frequent training for staff, matched with access to the right resources to enhance knowledge, skills and confidence to advocate for physical activity.

How can we support change?

The publication of the Harnessing the benefits of physical activity suggests 4 ways to integrate physical activity in the NHS, which closely align with the 10 Year Health Plan and support the Government’s 3 strategic shifts set out in response to Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS. This includes supporting more people in the community, instead of care that is centralised around hospitals, moving the NHS from analogue to digital and preventing illness before it develops.

Empowering healthcare professionals to discuss the importance of physical activity with patients and signposting then to local and digital opportunities is the first of the 4 ways forward.

Evidence shows that 1 in 4 people would be active if a healthcare professional advised it. This would result in 2.9 million adults becoming more active in England – all of whom would experience the vast benefits of moving more – including better health and wellbeing and ability to stave off illness and recover when it arises. In an ageing society, the priority must be to enable good health and independence as long as possible and moving more is a very good way of doing this.

What resources are available for healthcare professionals to build their skills and confidence?

Digital tools are available to staff such as the Moving Medicine tool which informs conversations with patients and the Physical Activity Clinical Champions (PACC) which supports professionals to utilise physical activity as a tool to improve outcomes. Other tools available are the Moving Healthcare Professionals Programme (MHPP) resources, which includes the Active Hospitals programme and All Our Health Physical Activity e-learning. The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Active Practice Charter also supports professionals to prioritise prevention, wellness, and community health.

These platforms are already proving useful to many. Read what users have to say: