Physical activity
We all know that physical activity is beneficial to health and wellbeing. At the same time, nurses have a vital role to play in sharing health information, signposting patients to appropriate services and supporting people to make lifestyle changes.
As a population, statistics show that we need to do more when it comes to being active. For example:
- over 1 in 4 women and
- 1 in 5 men do less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week, so are classified as ‘inactive’
- physical inactivity is the fourth largest cause of disease and disability in the UK.
As well as supporting our patients, it is also important to maintain good health within our nursing workforce. Encouraging staff to participate in activities such as cycling or walking to work, as well as providing low cost and fun exercise sessions in the workplace, will help to ensure that they are achieving the Chief Medical Officer's guidance for physical activity. See: Start active, stay active: infographics on physical activity for more information.
There are several resources available to help increase knowledge around how physical activity helps prevent as well as treat diseases, associated with no or lower levels of exercise. These include:
Motivate2move
The British Association of Sport & Exercise Medicine's Motivate2Move resource is endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to support health care practitioners with patients with a range of conditions. It offers supportive literature regarding challenging conversations with patients about improving their health by changing their exercise habits.
Physical Activity and Lifestyle Toolkit
These factsheets and website for health professionals have been created by general practitioners, nurses, physiotherapists, research scientists and peer reviewed by the Welsh Institute of Physical Activity, Health & Sport.
They were made specifically for busy health professionals to provide all the information required to understand the health benefits of physical activity. Set out by disease areas, they provide a brief synopsis of the scientific evidence for prevention and practical management of conditions helped by physical activity.
There are also further links into more reading, ideas for audit, key messages, NICE guidelines and further organisations which may be able to help. See: Motivate2Move physical activity toolkit.
Physical activity resources
- Department of Health and Social Care (2019). Physical activity guidelines: UK Chief Medical Officers' report
- Moving Medicine. A resource to help healthcare professionals integrate physical activity conversations into routine clinical care.
- Public Health England (2014). Everybody active, every day
- Sport England. Moving Healthcare Professionals
- Swim England. Swimming as medicine. This film encourages nurses to consider ‘Swimming as Medicine’
- Royal Osteoporosis Society. Exercising for bones
Other literature which supports the benefits of nurses being more physically active:
- NHS Employers Workplace Health (2015). Creating healthy workplaces: A toolkit for the NHS
- NICE (2019). Physical activity: encouraging activity in the community
- PACE-UP. PACE-UP was a randomised controlled trial of a pedometer Intervention to Increase walking in adults.
- Public Health England (2018). Physical activity: applying All Our Health. You can also visit the e-learning for health portal on All Our Health: Physical Activity. If you haven’t already done so you need to create a free e-learning account.
Page last updated - 18/07/2024
