2020 Annual Report Physical Activity

Activities

We held a launch event at the 2018 SAPC annual conference and since then have built our national and international membership base to 59 members. In 2019 we created a Twitter handle @SAPCexerciseSIG to keep in regular contact with the members, promote the SIG and share relevant research and initiatives. To date we have 121 followers. We also keep in contact with the SIG members via email to update them of plans and events associated with the SIG.

In January 2020 we organised a ‘Physical Activity Masterclass’. This event was facilitated by Dr Emma Healey, Chair for the SIG and Dr Ross Wilkinson was our guest speaker and is a GP Physical Activity Champion for Public Health England. Often in clinical training there is very little focus on understanding the importance of physical activity, the benefits it can provide and also how to motivate people to go through behaviour change. The aim of the Masterclass was to explore how best to embed physical activity into routine clinical care and will provide knowledge and skills to incorporate physical activity into everyday practice.

We gained financial support from SAPC and Stoke-on-Trent CCG and North Staffordshire CCG to deliver this event to local Health Care Professionals within their protected Learning time. A total of 55 attendees came along to the event and included a mix of health care professionals, academics and third sector workers.

Future plans

We aim to hold a webinar for the SIG in spring 2021 and are currently looking at guest speakers. We also aim to hold a SIG meeting at the annual conference in the summer.

Evidence of impact of the SIG

Through the ‘Physical Activity Masterclass’ we gained 23 extra SIG members.   Overall the evaluation of the masterclass was very positive. We hope that there will be long-term impact of the Physical Activity Masterclass, through improving communication regarding physical activity within primary care consultations

How affiliation with SAPC has helped the SIG

Affiliation with SAPC has helped us to identify and recruit members to the SIG who have a particular interest in the role of exercise / physical activity in primary care. I think being affiliated with SAPC provides further credentials to our Twitter account. SAPC also contributed financially to enable us to run the Physical Activity Masterclass.