Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the NHS Couch to 5K running scheme on improving levels of physical activity.

The National Health Service Couch to 5k programme was initially a nine week podcast series which was downloaded more than 1.5 million times. The success of the service led to the development of the Couch to 5k app in partnership with the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Public Health England began leadership of the Couch to 5k programme in 2016, where the mobile phone app was developed. The app has received more than 500,000 downloads since launch¹. The feedback from users is overwhelmingly positive with many referencing the voice-over from popular coaches being especially motivating.

The app does not record mobile sensor data and there is no historical app data available to compare pre and post usage.

¹Source: Google Analytics