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GPs in 11 areas to prescribe cycling and walking as part of £13m Government pilot

GPs in 11 areas to prescribe cycling and walking as part of £13m Government pilot

GPs will be asked to prescribe cycling and walking to patients to improve physical and mental health under a new £12.7m Government pilot.

In all, 11 areas will receive part of the multi-year funding, which the Government said it hopes will ‘reduce disparities’.

The pilots, first promised in the Government’s 2020 Gear Change plan, aim to ‘evaluate the impact of cycling and walking on an individual’s health, such as reduced GP appointments and reliance on medication due to more physical activity’.

The funding will go towards ‘several pilot projects’ in each location, the announcement said, including:

  • adult cycle training
  • free bike loans
  • walking groups
  • all-ability cycling ‘taster’ days
  • walking and cycling mental health groups
  • ‘wheeling’, for users of wheelchairs and mobility scooters

Pilots will start this year and continue until 2025, with ‘ongoing monitoring and evaluation’ throughout.

The Government claimed this was ‘the first time’ that ‘transport, active travel and health officials will work together towards a whole systems approach to health improvement and tackling health disparities’.

Areas where GPs will prescribe cycling and walking

  • Bath and North East Somerset
  • Bradford
  • Cornwall
  • Cumbria
  • Doncaster
  • Gateshead
  • Leeds
  • Nottingham
  • Plymouth
  • Suffolk
  • Staffordshire

Source: UK Government

The local authorities also need to improve infrastructure ‘so people feel safe to cycle and walk’, the Government said.

Walking and cycling minister Trudy Harrison, said:  ’Walking and cycling has so many benefits – from improving air quality in our communities to reducing congestion on our busiest streets.

‘It also has an enormous positive impact on physical and mental health, which is why we have funded these projects which will get people across the country moving and ease the burden on our NHS.’

Health minister Maria Caulfield, said: ‘Getting active is hugely beneficial for both our mental and physical health – helping reduce stress and ward off other illness such as heart disease and obesity.

‘The UK is leading the way in embedding social prescribing in our NHS and communities across the country. We’ve already exceeded our target to ensure over 900,000 people are referred to social prescribing schemes by 2023-24 and this pilot will help us identify further schemes to reduce disparities and boost mental and physical wellbeing across the country.’

The BMA said the pilot is ‘a step in the right direction for public health’ but warned that the ‘impact will be minimal without a clear commitment to long-term funding and consideration of the wider context’.

The GP Committee’s latest email bulletin added: ‘Without properly addressing resources and the capacity of GPs, this approach risks frustrating doctors as well as the public.

‘The initiative needs public health and primary care to have joined up policymaking and adequate funding, however, if prevention is to stay the course and deliver long-term health benefits, especially for the poorest.’

The initiative follows NHS England’s revelation that GP winter workload pressures are to be relieved via the hiring of 1,000 additional social prescribing link workers.

The Treasury has also cooked up a proposal for GPs to write prescriptions for money off energy bills for struggling patients this winter.


          

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READERS' COMMENTS [6]

Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles

Azeem Majeed 22 August, 2022 4:44 pm

My experience of similar schemes in the past such as “Exercise on Prescription” was that there was considerable inequity in their take-up, with the groups with the greatest health needs or lowest income levels often not using them.

It was often younger, healthier and financially better-off people who requested referral to these kind of schemes to encourage healthier lifestyles; in some ways thereby exacerbating health inequalities. It’s essential therefore that the pilot schemes are rigorously evaluated.

These NHS-based also can’t replace wider societal programmes and interventions to promote healthy living.

David Evans 22 August, 2022 4:46 pm

Is this what we have been reduced to? – I would rather boil my head than get involved with this twaddle.

Darren Tymens 22 August, 2022 5:33 pm

I look forward to the upcoming £20m pilot scheme Breathing and Farting On Prescription.

Carpe Vinum 23 August, 2022 10:18 am

Funny that our patients don’t need to have any high cost prescription only intervention for “eating cr@p and doing F-all sitting on the sofa watching Netflix”

Christopher Ho 23 August, 2022 11:41 am

David Evans – Whilst you’re still being forced to pay for it lol 13 f-ing million….
See why socialised healthcare fails? It is always easier to spend someone else’s money…

Patrufini Duffy 23 August, 2022 3:47 pm

£13 million. Wow. Cornwall and Cumbria? Please. Struggling there aren’t they.