Writing for The Leaders Council, Wave Leisure Trust CEO Duncan Kerr looks back on the events of the 2016 ukactive conference and what must be done for the leisure industry to truly support the health of the nation.
“The pharmaceutical industry dreams of discovering a magic pill that is as effective a treatment as physical activity”, said then NHS England CEO Simon Stevens during the 2016 ukactive conference.
In 2016, ukactive held its annual conference and I, like many others was attracted by the headline “Simon Stevens to lead stellar speaker line-up for ukactive National Summit 2016”. This one was not to be missed. If ukactive had been able to attract the CEO of the NHS to talk about the potential of physical activity, it felt like we, as an industry, led by ukactive, had taken a significant step towards a new level of recognition, at long last someone on the inside, a man with power and influence who understood the potential of our sector.
Other speakers in attendance included Nicola Blackwood, Jennie Price, Dr Chris Van Tulleken and Tanni Grey-Thompson, presented to the audience as “thought leaders from the worlds of physical activity, health, and politics”, certainly, people of influence.
The conference itself took place at Westminster’s Queen Elizabeth II Centre on November 9, 2016, with the central theme highlighted as “Physical Activity: Always Moving Forward”, exploring how the sector can support the NHS to deliver its ambitions for a healthy, active nation and ensure physical activity is at the heart of the preventative health agenda.
The pre-summit promotional material highlighted that breakout sessions would bring together leading public health and physical activity experts to explore key topics, such as delivering physical activity as part of the government’s new strategies, the role of prevention in the future of the NHS, and the professionalisation of the physical activity sector.
Of particular interest to me was Chris Van Tulleken, the doctor and TV presenter who at the time had recently featured in the high-profile BBC documentary “The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs”, looking at the importance of the preventative agenda in cutting down Britain’s dependence on prescription pills.
I remember thinking that all of this is seriously impressive and, let’s hope, an opportunity for our sector moving forward.
Roll on 11 months later to October 19, 2017, Jak Philips, ukactive head of communications wrote a blog building on the theme.
Within that blog, Philips wrote: “In a society where physical inactivity is killing twice as many people as obesity [University of Cambridge, 2015] shouldn’t we be embracing physical activity as a public health priority for its other benefits?”
Philips further notes: “how about its [physical activity] ability to prevent 30 per cent of dementia cases, 30 per cent of osteoporosis, radically reduce risk of breast and bowel cancers, not to mention prevent depression, reduce stress and eliminate type 2 diabetes?”
The blog went on: “ukactive’s seminal 'Turning the Tide of Inactivity Report' was undoubtedly a key factor in getting the ball rolling, but it’s been the meticulous work of the ukactive Research Institute, working hand in hand with the sector and partners such as Public Health England which has really helped this movement to snowball.”
Philips highlighted that in October 2017, ukactive’s CEO Steven Ward took to the stage at the Royal College of GPs’ Annual Conference to discuss the potential for physical activity to transform primary care, commenting: “to have a leader of our sector addressing the marquee meeting of Britain’s most trusted clinicians would have been unthinkable even a few years ago, and it shows just how far the physical activity movement has come.”
Further than that, there was a “validation of our sector among the upper echelons of health policy...when ukactive’s health & wellbeing lead Kenny Butler co-authored a paper in the prestigious British Medical Journal. The co-authors, NHS chief knowledge officer, Professor Muir Gray, and council member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Scarlett McNally, joined Kenny in asserting that social care is a consequence of preventable loss of fitness, not an inevitability. Together, they cited gyms and a range of physical activity opportunities as part of the cure to the long-term conditions that blight our ageing society.”
Philips finished the blog with two defining statements:
· “Our sector’s future will be determined by how bold and collaborative we are willing to be in our thinking.”
· “We will continue to champion the role of physical activity in this landscape and work with partners across the clinical spectrum to achieve our goal of a happier, healthier, wealthier nation.”
I have been a positive advocate for the role our sector can play within primary health care and as much as we have invested our own time, energy and resources into developing new initiatives to support community health, six years on from that 2016 National Summit I find myself reflecting on the many sound bites and impassioned statements about the progress we have made and yet, I’m not aware of a single funded national strategy supporting the sector to deliver in partnership with the NHS. Perhaps the fact that our sector's outward-facing messaging continues to reference facilities, as opposed to facilities and services, is part of the problem.
I do appreciate that there are national campaigns, but the majority of these focus on health promotion messaging and utilisation of marketing resources, not actual funding into the sector to ensure greater levels of support to those most in need and they fall well short of the overall potential for the sector to support the “Health of the Nation.”
So, I ask one simple question: if physical activity can reverse type 2 diabetes, why is there no funded national physical activity programme rolled out across our sector to support those with the condition? Seriously, why?
“The pharmaceutical industry dreams of discovering a magic pill that is as effective a treatment as physical activity.” These are not my words, but the words of the most senior individual in the NHS.
With Simon Stevens having moved on from the NHS and government reforms having brought about the new Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, is now not the right time to question why, five years on, the “magic pill” is still in the jar, on the shelf, with the lid screwed closed and how we, as a sector are aligning to the government’s reforms ensuring that we’re best placed to support?
