Integrated Health and Care Report

GM Moving are working to understand how we can build moving more into Greater Manchester's health and care sector.

To date, Substance and GM Moving have produced two evaluation reports, available below.

Both reports focus on eight practical recommendations which were created following Wave 1. They explain how we can embed moving more in the health and care sector and were updated in Wave 2.

The eight practical recommendations are:

1. Data and insight - Facilitate the identification and use of existing data and insight highlighting inequality of access or uptake to physical activity opportunities to ensure no communities are excluded going forward. Create a resource of sector data sources and a bank of data packs and sources of insight to support local programmes.

2. Relatable comms - Create co-produced messaging (portfolio of resources) that speak to all levels of the system and help them shape and influence their respective audiences in identifiable terms and with messages around physical activity that resonate with them.

3. Community champions and trusted transmitters - Identify local community champions or trusted transmitters in locality settings to act as conduits and translators of physical activity messaging and the promotion of physical activity in the hyper-local system.

4. Signposting, resources and training - Ensure layers of the system have access, time and resources to understand the benefits of integrating physical activity into health and care. Signpost to the wealth of existing training opportunities and resources available. 

5. Strategic leverage across the system - Capitalise on GM Moving as an established brand for physical activity. Use GM Moving and other identified strategic leaders to push more challenging discussions at a strategic level to realise the priorities within the strategy. 

6. Physical activity as a core priority -Position physical activity to the centre stage for all health and social care agendas rather than as an add-on or complementary service. Embed physical activity into the health and care workforce daily routine. 

7. Safe-space community of practice - Create and enable safe spaces for narrative of physical activity in health and social care to evolve and where needed, disrupt the existing system. Facilitate and convene conversations which bridge gaps and start new movements of change. 

8. Authentic strategic enabling collective leadership - Strategic leaders/sparkplugs to enable system change through promoting PA in their own practice and displaying authentic interest and personal belief systems. People within their systems are empowered to mirror behaviour and narratives to promote an ethos of physical activity across areas of personal and professional lives.

Wave 1 (Sept 22 to Mar 23)

The Wave 1 research produced eight pragmatic steps and recommendations to integrate
physical activity into health and social care systems.

The research team linked emergent findings to previous work on Greater Manchester system change evaluation and its five enablers of change.

Wave 2 (Oct 23 to May 24)

Our Wave 2 research reinforced that the eight recommendations were supporting physical activity's inclusion in health and care systems.

It also allowed us to dig deeper into three key areas, mental health, Active Practices and non-clinical diseases to see how the recommendations were being applied.

Using the Pragmatic Recommendations

To bring the eight recommendations to life, and aid our understanding of how they work, GM Moving worked with Substance to look at their practical applications when we apply them to three areas of work: Active Practices, mental health, and non-clinical interventions.

Click the downloads on the right to see how each of the recommendations plays its role in supporting movement to be a tool which can be used in these areas of health work.

There's also top tips - four key recommendations - associated specifically with each area which, we believe, could help us all have an even bigger impact.