Sporting Future focuses on health and inactivity

In her last blog of 2015, Hannah Dobbin looks at how the new sports strategy plans to promote health and tackle inactivity.

Sporting Future: A New Strategy for an Active Nation has been published and it makes an interesting read. It covers a wide range of issues but coming through strongly is a focus on physical activity, or should I say inactivity, and to a lesser extent mental wellbeing though this, promisingly, is featured as one of the five key outcomes. Here is an outline of key measure in these areas.

Physical activity
Broadly, the Strategy suggests that sport must become ‘more demand-led’ and adapt to suit how people want to engage in sport and physical activity. Behavioural insights and how people make decisions will be central to the new approach for delivering sport and physical activity (p20). This will give equal opportunities to a range of organisations to engage with this agenda and opportunities that emerge from the framework set out in the Strategy.

More specifically, Government announced that Sport England will work closely with Public Health England to pilot local physical activity strategies in a number of selected areas (p14). These areas will have identified physical inactivity as a key priority through their Health and Wellbeing Strategies and will have close cooperation between local agencies. More to come on this in Sport England’s own strategy in 2016.

In addition, physical activity has a dedicated section (p26) which states that:

‘Government, working with local government, will ensure that the recommendations in Public Health England’s (PHE) report Everybody Active, Every Day are properly implemented. PHE will report annually on progress in implementing Everybody Active, Every Day, including by showcasing examples of good practice’.

The Strategy also give prominence to walking and cycling flagging that the forthcoming Childhood Obesity Strategy and Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy will provide more detail on plans to encourage healthier living and getting people more active.

Other significant announcements include:

• Government will broaden Sport England’s role to measuring and supporting both sport and certain kinds of physical activity including cycling, dancing and walking. Further details to come in Sport England’s strategy next year
• Sport England will establish new funding designed specifically to get inactive people more physically active. Again more to follow in Sport England’s strategy
• Within its major grants, Sport England will include a target for percentage of inactive people that organisations and programme should be engaging
• Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Department of Health will work with the NHS, PHE, the Local Government Association and others to promote the integration of sport and physical activity into care pathways and maximise the potential of advice, prescribing and referral interventions by health and social care professionals. Government will report on progress in the first annual update to Parliament on this strategy in 2016

There is also a focus on the role of employers and raising awareness:
• DCMS will work with others to establish a network of employers which are keen to support and encourage their staff to be more physically active
• Sport England and PHE will ‘create a compelling environment that encourages everybody, especially under-represented groups, to meet the Chief Medical Officers’ (CMO) guidelines on physical activity’

Outdoor recreation has huge potential to get more people moving. You can read more about the outdoor recreation aspects of the Strategy here.

Plans for getting children and young people more active will be covered in another blog coming soon!

Mental wellbeing
Our work through the Mental Health Charter for Sport and Recreation reflects the drive within the sector around this agenda and highlights the great work that is already going on.

Mental wellbeing appears early on in the strategy as a key outcome in the new framework and although the value of sport and physical activity is recognised, the strategy suggests that less is known about the precise links between mental wellbeing and sporting behaviours. Government wants more evidence to be collected and states that it will work with the new What Works Centre for Wellbeing among other initiatives to fill this gap.

It is essential that more detail follows shortly. The Alliance will continue our work in this area and push for the agenda to move away from gathering more evidence to a greater focus on developing what we know works.

Key performance indicators
The strategy sets out key performance indicators under the outcomes. These include:
• Increase in the percentage of the population in England meeting the CMO guidelines for physical activity
• Decrease in the percentage of the population that are physically inactive
• Improved subjective wellbeing

Final thoughts…
All in all, physical activity is a central pillar of the strategy. It provides the sport and recreation with opportunities but also challenges. For example traditional sports may consider how they can effectively reach the inactive and outdoor recreation bodies may think about how they can benefit from the measures set out. We will wait to see what 2016 holds, hopefully more details on implementation, especially around mental health.

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