Asked by: Michael Wheeler (Labour - Worsley and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential contribution of grassroots sports clubs in preventative healthcare.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Sport and physical activity including grassroots sports clubs play a vital role in preventing, and helping to treat and manage, a wide range of health conditions and in delivering the Government’s Health Mission.
Latest evidence provided by Sport England shows that physical activity directly prevents 3.2 million cases of long term health conditions per year, including 1.3 million cases of depression and 600,000 cases of diabetes, worth over £10 billion in healthcare savings each year.