Health and care professionals should feel empowered to promote physical activity to their patients, and this is how we can support them
In this blog, Dr Natasha Jones, President of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine; Dr William Bird, GP and CEO of Intelligent Health; and Dan Fitzpatrick, Sport and Exercise Medicine Registrar at University College London Hospitals consider how GPs can feel empowered to promote physical activity for patients.
Empowering health and care 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?
Health and care 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 Harnessing the benefits of physical activity suggests 4 ways forward to integrating physical activity in the NHS, which closely align with the 10 Year Health Plan for England 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
- preventing illness before it develops
Empowering health and care professionals to discuss the importance of physical activity with patients and signposting them 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 into life and moving more is a very good way of doing this.
What resources are available for health and care 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 which supports professionals to utilise physical activity as a tool to improve outcomes. Other tools available are the Moving Healthcare Professionals Programme resources, which includes the Active Hospitals programme and All our health physical activity e-learning. The Royal College of General Practitioners’ Active Practice Charter also supports professionals to prioritise prevention, wellness, and community health.
These platforms are already proving useful to many. Hear what users have to say:
“I think it was during lockdown, so obviously everyone was at home quite a lot, and I had a patient, she was struggling with low mood. So, I suggested trying to get out of the house and that she starts off by going for walks, even just 5 minutes and see how she got on with that. And yeah, then she came back and said that she’d bought herself a bike and she and her husband were biking everywhere, and it did help her mood”. Trainee GP
“I can think of a lady who has now lost 3 stone. She used to walk her dogs. There is a hill nearby and she said she used to stop 5 times to walk her dogs to get up to the top. She now does not stop at all”. Diabetes dietician
I recently had a patient who had a very bad fall and lost confidence completely. She didn’t feel able to engage with the rehab suggestion of walking more or doing more, so we did some seated exercises together. It’s gone from strength to strength and she’s now able to move and walk across the room. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: the stronger she was, the more she was able to do and the more she did. Community nurse
Publication reference: PRN02315
Dr Natasha Jones
Dr Natasha Jones MB,.BS(Lond), FFSEM, FRCP, is a Consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, President of the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine UK, Director of Moving Medicine, Co-lead for Physical Activity Clinical Champions and Co-lead for Moving Together.
Natasha started her career with 10 years in general practice before re-training in sport and exercise medicine when it became a specialty in its own right.
She has been a dedicated advocate of the physical activity agenda, especially in the prevention and treatment of long-term conditions. She co-founded Moving Medicine in 2018, understanding the unique role that SEM consultants play in the cross sector, collaborative team required to deliver physical activity interventions to people living with multiple symptomatology.
She has led multiple initiatives aimed at educating healthcare in this space. She is now working with the national organisation Active Partnerships on the Moving Together project, aiming to remove systematic barriers to people living with long-term conditions and promote more autonomous, empowering pathways between health and physical activity.