GUEST INTERVIEW Doctor’s orders

Journal: How important do you feel the role between health and exercise is?

JH: The role of physical activity in health is no longer a debate. There is extensive research in many illness areas demonstrating the benefit of exercise in both the prevention and treatment of disease. I am dedicated to the promotion of exercise at both an individual level with my patients, and also as a public health intervention. I know it can make a real difference to keeping people healthy, which improves quality of life, keeps people in employment, and can reduce the burden on a fiscally challenged NHS. The Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine is committed to the use of exercise for health. There are now around 30 specialists in sports and exercise medicine recognised by the General Medical Council, and there are approximately another 40 currently undergoing training.

Journal: How long have you been combining exercise and medicine? And how did you get involved in this?

JH: I initially trained as a GP, and I continue to be a practicing partner in Calverton, near Nottingham. I am also the chief medical officer for Short Track Speed Skating and I started formal consultant training in sport and exercise medicine in 2010, and have been working within the public health department in Nottingham. As part of this I wrote an evaluation of the exercise referral schemes in Nottinghamshire, and found that they did significantly increase exercise volume a year after completion. I was then invited to join a drafting group as a representative of the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine, that was formed to write guidelines on exercise referral for patients with a wide variety of diseases.

Journal: Where do we go to from here? JH: As REPs members I suspect you

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are all convinced of the value of physical activity. The challenge we now face is spreading this message. To do this I believe we all need to work together, sharing our skills, and creating a unified message to promote exercise to the general population.

We also need to convince the

commissioners – the new GP consortia – that exercise is worth investing in. We need to collect more evidence of the high quality care that is currently provided, and demonstrate favorable outcomes.

Currently exercise referral schemes tend

to be stand-alone and “referred into” by doctors. Patients undergo a course of exercise prescription, and are then discharged. I believe that if we create a multidisciplinary model using the skills from exercise professionals, exercise scientists, physiotherapists, and Sport and Exercise medicine doctors

The REPs Journal 2011;21(June):4

we can all add value, and bring the benefits of exercise to a wider variety of patients with all kinds of medical needs.

Dr James Hopkinson, GP, chief medical officer for Short Track Speed Skating and a specialist registrar in sport and exercise medicine has worked as part of the Joint Consultative Forum with REPS and the FIA. He shares his views on health exercise

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