Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure that healthcare professionals have the skills and confidence to prescribe physical activity as a treatment and management tool for people living with long-term conditions.

The Government and the National Health Service recognise the important role of physical activity in the prevention and management of long-term health conditions.

The NHS Better Health Campaign promotes ways for adults, families, and children to move more, and signposts people, including those living with long term conditions and who are ready to build movement back into routines, to digital support like the NHS Active 10 walking app. Local authorities and the NHS also promote and provide services for people living with long term conditions, such as exercise on referral and social prescribing, including access to physical activity interventions, fall prevention, and walking groups.

The Department, with Sport England, has delivered support and training to equip healthcare professionals to enable patients to move more, to improve their physical and mental health. Sport England continues to support work in this area through the Physical Activity Clinical Champions programme, which is currently being piloted in local areas.

NHS England is working closely with partners nationally and locally to explore how the NHS might galvanise support to make physical activity a core part of NHS care, in order to benefit patients, NHS staff, and the wider public.

By empowering clinicians and healthcare professionals with the skills and confidence to discuss and promote physical activity, through integrating it into key clinical pathways and by aligning it with Core20PLUS5 for adults, children, and young people, the NHS could help to transform patient outcomes and reduce health inequalities.