What is Moving Medicine?
Moving Medicine is an exciting new initiative by the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine in partnership with Public Health England and Sport England. It is dedicated to spreading best practice, research and advice to clinicians and patients to create a healthier, happier and more active nation. On the 16th October 2018 the initiative was formally launched by the Honourable Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for health and social care, headlining the flagship set of resources to support high quality conversations on physical activity across a broad range of chronic diseases.
Why is it important
The UK is currently suffering pandemic levels of physical inactivity in keeping with global trends. This inactivity causes a heavy burden of morbidity and mortality. This burden, In contrast to communicable disease, can be prevented and effectively treated through moving more.
At the heart of intervention in healthcare lie conversations between healthcare professionals and members of the public. These conversations provide a unique opportunity to Interact with the least active members of society, but many healthcare professionals currently lack the skills, knowledge and systems to deliver impactful conversations on physical activity.
How has it been developed
The ‘prescribing movement’ resources have been developed by a large team of Sport and Exercise Medicine doctors in consultation with 300 medical specialists, general practitioners, researchers and patients. The foundations of the content lie in robust reviews of the literature on physical activity in specific diseases and differ from other resources summarising the evidence base on physical activity as the structure has been designed by clinicians for clinicians to use in practise. A knowledge into action framework, Delphi study and behavioural change framework have underpinned this iterative development process. The result enables the user to dig as deep as they want to into the evidence base, embedded in a time-based framework to support good quality conversations based on established behavioural change techniques and motivational interviewing theory.
What does the future hold
Moving Medicine provides a unique opportunity for Sport and Exercise Medicine physicians to lead, share and develop the role of physical activity in routine care in collaboration with a wide range of specialists across healthcare. Collaboration so far has been achieved with 25 medical organisations and charities including the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of General Practitioners, Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, Royal College of Nursing and BASEM adding enormous weight to the initiative. Further development is ongoing including new modules on prescribing movement, educational resources and an active hospital toolkit, whilst campaign and promotional materials are already freely available online.
We encourage everyone to use and share the resources and anyone who is keen to contribute to the Moving Movement to get in touch with us at contactus@movingmedicine.ac.uk – we would love to hear from you.
Visit the website at www.movingmedicine.ac.uk
Dr Hamish Reid and Dr Natasha Jones
Consultants in Sport and Exercise Medicine
Moving Medicine Project Leads
