A new and exciting opportunity is being offered to health professionals across the Yorkshire area in an effort to enhance their health and fitness using a ground-breaking workplace wellness initiative. The programme uses different methods to encourage staff to gradually elevate their levels of physical activity through a number of team-based challenges using state of the art digital tracking technology. The Pennine GP Alliances Inaugural Wellbeing Challenge incorporates different ways of rewarding staff members who complete fifteen minutes of daily activity. After four weeks of the competition, the highest scoring team of employees will be crowned champions following which, those who are involved will be encouraged to continue with similar activities in order to maintain a good, healthy lifestyle.
The new scheme will be taught by Active Teams and funded by Active Calderdale in an effort to address critical, local health challenges. At this current time, one third of adults in the local area do not take part in any regular physical activity. This can significantly impact their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
Healthcare professionals working within the Calder & Ryburn Primary Care Network will be the first to be offered access to Active Teams, with further Primary Care Networks in Calderdale following suit.
By investing in the wellness of those who care for our communities, this programme represents a significant step towards creating healthier workplaces and, ultimately, a healthier local population.
“Physical activity brings significant benefits to peoples’ mental and physical health, but it isn’t a habit for everyone. We’re proud to support our staff’s wellbeing through this initiative and look forward to seeing how their experiences inspire patients. When healthcare staff make activity part of their lives, they can share its benefits in a more meaningful way,” Hannah Davies, General Practice Physical Activity Champion at Pennine GP Alliance.
“We need innovative approaches to support the NHS’ shift from treatment to prevention. Services like Active Teams, which encourage people towards reaching healthy levels of physical activity through fun team competitions and challenges, are going to be an important piece of the puzzle. Many people are employed in sedentary roles and more employers should be considering preventative health measures like Active Teams, to increase staff health, wellbeing and productivity,” Nairn Robertson, Founder of Active Team.
The new initiative is part of the government’s strategy to help people across the country increase their levels of physical activity. The new approach prioritises frontline health workers as detailed in the recent government white paper.
The Health Impact: Research demonstrates that just 22 minutes of moderate physical activity per day can deliver remarkable health benefits:
– Reducing stress and anxiety by up to 30%*
– Lowering the risk of chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes by 40%**
– Minimising musculoskeletal problems, a leading cause of workplace absence across the UK.
Moderate activity is where your heart rate is raised, making you breathe harder and break a sweat, but so that you can still talk.
For most people, the easiest way to get moving is to make activity part of everyday life, like walking for health or cycling instead of using the car to get around. However, the more you do, the better, and taking part in activities such as sports and exercise will make you even healthier.
For any type of activity to benefit your health, you need to be moving quick enough to raise your heart rate, breathe faster and feel warmer. This level of effort is called moderate intensity activity. If you’re working at a moderate intensity, you should still be able to talk but you won’t be able to sing the words to a song.
