We need an seamless system between, school, community and elite sport
GPs need to better understand and promote the fitness prescription message
policy strands: PE and sport, community sport and high performance/elite sport. Houlihan also questioned whether na-
tional governing bodies of sport (NGBs) are best placed to deliver sustained in- creases in sports participation; a point which seemed to find favour with many of the delegates. He finished by offering his views
on Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society concept and provided two contrasting views: the optimistic view emphasised, among other things, its potential to encourage greater engage- ment and participation by individuals and local civil society organisations (in- cluding sports organisations); while a more pessimistic view described it as little more than a smokescreen for reductions in public expenditure and a slimming down of the state. Houlihan suggested that it will be the
groups with non-standard needs (fami- lies, women and the poor) and those who live in less affluent areas who will suffer most because the voluntary sector will not have the capacity to fill the gap left by reductions in public services (including sport and recreation services) tradition- ally provided by local authorities.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND PUBLIC HEALTH The founder of Walking for Health, the Green Gym and Intelligent Health, Dr William Bird – a practicing GP – gave a fascinating insight into relationships be- tween physical activity and public health. Backing up his arguments with
evidence-based medical research, he suggested that physical activity must be viewed by the medical profession as important in its own right, as it has the potential to be the primary contributor to the delivery of positive public health outcomes. “It’s more healthy to be fat and fit than thin and unfit,” he stated in
Issue 4 2012 © cybertrek 2012 Sport must be packaged in different ways that are non-
threatening, fun and delivered in a non-traditional manner to secure a significant proportion of the public health budget
a message, which he said was not widely understood among health commissioners. Talking directly to the sports practitio-
ners in the audience, he suggested that for sports organisations to have any rea- sonable chance of securing a significant proportion of the public health budget, the bar must be lowered to encour- age new people to be active in sport. For this to happen, he said: “Sport must be packaged in different ways that are non-threatening, fun and delivered in a non-traditional manner”. Bird then turned his attention to the
importance of evaluation in securing funding from public health. “The quality of evaluation has to be of a high enough standard to count,” he stated, “which
lays down a challenge for academics and practitioners carrying out evaluation of sport and physical activity programmes.”
CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Sean Holt, CEO of the Chartered Insti- tute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMSPA), made an impassioned plea to the delegates, and through them to their employers, to support the development of the insti- tute. In particular he encouraged the industry to continue to commit time and funding into continuous professional development (CPD) during this period of austerity – using the CIMSPA professional development framework as a tool.
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