Integrated Health and Care

People and patients who are active are significantly more likely to have better health and wellbeing, they're less likely to require the health and care system and, if they do, they wait better and recover quicker. 

To support patients to live well, we can design movement into all health pathways. There's lots of existing support out there to help you play your role.

We want to support better collaboration between the health and care system and our partners in physical activity, sport, transport, planning, the list goes on - it's all part of our whole-system approach. Learn more about our work within complex systems here.

To discover more about the how physical activity ecosystem needs to adapt and evolve to be a better part of the solution to health, wellbeing and reduced inequalities, read this blog by GM Moving's Exec Lead, Hayley Lever.

For example, the Greater Manchester Health and Care Board published their vision and objectives to guide the next stage of development of the Health and Care Partnership as they progress to a statutory Integrated Care System in line with the national expectations outlined by NHS England and the Government. Read their March 2021 paper here.

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Get inspired by our stories of change

Moving more has the power to change lives, it’s why GM Moving involves a huge range of partners from a variety of different sectors - all playing their role in the GM Moving in Action strategy.

Here’s some stories of how designing physical activity into health and care pathways is already creating multiple positive health outcomes in Greater Manchester:

> Nordic Walking with ABCDiagnosis

> Fit 4 Life Gym (Bolton)

> GM Active delivers active wellbeing

GM Active is made up of 12 separate leisure and community organisations, their members operate in all ten local authority areas across Greater Manchester and accounts for 99 leisure and sports facilities across the city-region.

They regularly highlight the excellent work being done by members of the GM Active collective that showcases how their services and facilities can benefit the health and social care system.

From postural stability in Wigan, to strength and balance classes in Salford, from Good Boost sessions in Manchester to support for stroke patients in Bury, you will find inspiring case studies here.

> Stories from around Greater Manchester

Evaluation Report 2023

To gain a greater understanding of the progress of physical activity integration with the Greater Manchester health and care system, GM Moving commissioned Substance to investigate.

Between September 2022 and March 2023, they conducted research to support GM Moving with an insight-led approach to position and further integrate physical activity across the wider health and care system.

The findings, covering influencers (referred to as sparkplugs) and their agency/commitment, are available in the summary and the full report (see links, right). 

The report produced eight practical recommendations on:

1. Data and insight - Use existing data and insight highlighting inequality of access or uptake of physical activity opportunities to ensure no communities are excluded going forward. 
2. Relatable comms - Create co-produced messaging/resources that speaks to all levels of the system and help them shape and influence their respective audiences in identifiable terms and with messages that resonate.
3. Community champions and trusted transmitters - Continue to identify community champions/trusted transmitters in localities to act as conduits and translators of physical activity messaging and their promotion in the hyper-local systems.
4. Signposting, resources and training - There are fantastic training opportunities and resources available. Not necessarily a need to recreate more resources, but ensure all layers of the system have access to time and resources to understand the opportunities and benefits of physical activity. 
5. Strategic leverage across the system - Capitalise on GM Moving as an established brand for physical activity. Use this to push more challenging discussions a strategic level to realise the priorities within GM Moving in Action.
6. Physical activity as a core priority - Position physical activity as centre stage for all health and social care agendas, move this into all strategic priorities to ensure it is a collective goal.
7. Safe-space community of practice - Create and enable safe spaces for the narrative of physical activity in health and social care to evolve and, where needed, disrupt existing systems. Facilitate and convene conversations which bridge gaps and start new movements of change.
8. Authentic strategic enabling collective leadership - Strategic leaders/sparkplugs continue to be catalysts of system change through their own practice and evident authentic interest and personal belief systems.

Healthcare professionals

There are thousands of people and organisations working to improve health and wellbeing, from the NHS to those in the voluntary and community sector, local authorities, employers and the commercial health and wellbeing sector.

We want active lives to play their full part in prevention of health conditions and tackling health inequalities.

See our page with support, resources and toolkits for healthcare professionals here.

Strength-related physical activity

GM Moving are beginning investigations into how to support women in Greater Manchester feel capable, motivated, and with sufficient opportunities to incorporate strength-related physical activity into their daily life. 

We hope to look into the current misconceptions around strength training, address barriers to participation, and raise awareness for the need to participate in this type of activity (as per CMO guidelines).

Further updates on this project will be published here in due course.

Existing resources and materials from national partners and colleagues are available in the sidebar on the right.

Our story so far

Connecting with health and wellbeing is one of Sport England's five key priorities in their national Uniting the Movement strategy, published in January 2021.

More than 150,000 healthcare professionals have received training, or accessed a training tool, to help patients feel benefits of being active as part of Sport England's Moving Healthcare Professionals programme, in partnership with OHID.

In July 2022, as part of the Active Partnership Network’s collective work around health, wellbeing and inactivity, Greater Manchester and Yorkshire colleagues hosted a sharing and learning community event.

The event looked at cross-sector collaboration, putting the patient's voice at the centre and the impact of positive case studies, read more on the day, including reflections from our CEO Hayley Lever, here.

In September 2022, the Health, Care and Inactivity sharing and learning community hosted an Open Space Event in Birmingham. Our CEO Hayley Lever hosted an open session with Active Partnership colleagues in October 2022 for those leading physical activity and health integration.

For more on our journey to integrate physical activity with health and care read Hayley Lever's blog (April 2022).​

A year later (September 2023), a further reflection and sense-making session was held for colleagues from across the country working to embed movement into health and social care to further understand what success looks like across the Active Partnership Network (see video, right).

In partnership with Sport England and NHS Horizons, the event in Manchester aimed to collectively clarify what we mean by integrating physical activity into health and care systems, build relationships, and identify and share learnings around common opportunities and challenges.

Need to know more?