Health and fi tness professionals gathered at The Belfry in Wishaw, West Midlands, to discuss and examine industry topics
These people will be looking for venues to train in and advice on how to prepare – great news for our sector. Working in partnership with NGBs
can help operators think more creatively about their provision. We’ve developed some really innovative, successful offerings – such as indoor ‘extreme’ – in partnership with clients who are willing to embrace change and give people what they want. Both operators and NGBs share an ambition to get more people involved in regular physical activity, so partnering makes total sense.
Michelle Dand NGBs make fantastic partners, giving us access to new audiences. For example, we’re working with British Triathlon to develop and deliver more affordable, accessible triathlon events in local communities. In addition to attracting more people into our centres to train, this also helps British Triathlon achieve Sport England participation targets.
Rachel Gomm Working with NGBs has helped us take physical activity opportunities out to the community, expanding our reach beyond the confines of our leisure centres.
Stuart Lockwood Mass participation events enable us to engage a larger slice of the local
July 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
population than if we just focus our attention on what physical activities we can provide via our leisure centres. We’re currently working with Oldham Council and other community partners to deliver a local 5km, 7km and half marathon event. In addition to encouraging more
people to directly take part in physical activity, these events also engage other groups within the community – local volunteer organisations and youth groups, for example. This creates a pool of local talent for employers and gives volunteers an opportunity to gain vital work experience, which can then help them secure a paid job.
Q
What are your organisations doing to collect evidence- based data and measure user outcomes?
Michelle Dand Over the last couple of years, Everyone Active has developed an online offering to reach people in the community who are not using our leisure centres. This creates a huge data pool, and the next step is to work on collating and analysing that data. In addition to this, we’re also
conducting audits of existing data, implementing minimum datasets for consistency and quality assured
measurable health outcomes to demonstrate effectiveness. We do, however, recognise there’s
more to be done. In recognition of the need for data collection, Everyone Health is currently developing a bespoke software solution.
Rachel Gomm Birmingham City Council has combined deprivation data with its own records and worked with partners to analyse the data. Findings have reported that, for every pound invested in Be Active – Birmingham’s physical activity
programme – there has been £22- worth of healthcare related benefits. When we present results like this, it’s
diffi cult for local authorities and clinical commissioning groups not to take our sector seriously.
Stuart Lockwood The key is being able to prove that health and fitness interventions result in behavioural change and, while we recognise a need to get to this point, we’re not there yet. We have isolated examples where
we’re achieving this – such as through our GP referral programmes – but this kind of measurement and analysis needs to become a standard rather than an exception if we’re to secure signifi cant public health funding. ●
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 79
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