Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department has issued to GPs to promote participation in sport to their patients.

In 2017 Public Health England and Sport England established a co-funded, multi-component partnership called the Moving Healthcare Professional Programme (MHPP) which increases awareness and skills of health professionals to embed activity within routine care.

A component of MHPP includes the peer-to-peer Clinical Champions work-stream which is focused on developing the skills of health professionals to deliver brief advice on physical activity as part of routine care. This programme has trained over 5,000 healthcare professionals across the whole programme, the majority of whom are general practitioners in training.

In 2013, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published guidance recommending that healthcare professionals integrate brief advice on physical activity into routine clinical practice.

The United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines for physical activity include daily or weekly quantities of physical activity of at least moderate intensity, for example 150 minutes per week for adults.