Blog by Matt Evans, Active People and Place Manager

Our work to embed physical activity within the health system in Lincolnshire continues, and recently our connections within the Social Prescribing world have unlocked opportunities for conversations in the Musculoskeletal (MSK) clinical pathway. Both programmes have a desire to ensure the patient voice is at the heart of the offer and therefore sit for support with Personalisation colleagues at the NHS Lincolnshire Community Health Service trust.

As I had recently looked at the Social Prescribing patient journey and mapped many of the potential touch points for there to be a physical activity nudge, it felt far easier for me to advocate that approach with an MSK lens. This was a method I learnt from our time working closely with Active Dorset so I was delighted to be invited to share this. There is now a clear need to pull resources together and raise their profile so physiotherapists, clinicians and other health partners have a better understanding of how physical activity can support their patients. Whilst a physio appointment might enable a patient to get some activity into their week to help them in treating conditions, managing recovery and/or preparing for surgery, a leisure sector offer will support people to achieve more active minutes and therefore be able to ‘wait well’.

Within personalisation, it is asked “What matters to you?” rather than “what is the matter with you?”. A good example of this is when a resident tells a clinician that they want to be able to pick their new grandchild up and give them a hug. We know in the physical activity sector what kind of training would help to do that and could, if given the opportunity to, prepare programmes with that outcome. However, that initial motivation has often been overlooked with a much more ‘problem and solution’ type approach. For example, back pain could have a solution of pain killers.

There are a wealth of resources out there and we are looking forward to working with colleagues to pull this together through the hub of Let’s Move Lincolnshire.