
The charter aims to help them raise awareness of the simple changes that can be made to improve the physical and mental wellbeing of patients and staff.
Supported by National Lottery investment from Sport England, the charter outlines key principles of what it means for a practice to be active and the steps GPs and their teams can take to get there.
All GPs know that encouraging patients to be more active can have huge benefits on their health and wellbeing and, in some cases, drastically improve conditions such as diabetes and heart disease – even dementia.
But having the time to advise patients on lifestyle in the current 10-minute consultation can be a huge challenge, especially when there are often so many other things we need to discuss and when this probably wasn't the reason the patient has made the appointment – so taking a practice-wide approach to encouraging healthier lifestyles, for all of us, is a great idea.
To gain Active Practice status, surgeries will need to show they've taken a number of steps, including:
- Increasing physical activity in patients and staff
- Reducing sedentary behaviour in patients and staff
- Partnering with a local physical activity provider to support the practice to get more people active.
Park Run Practice
Developing links with your local park run in order to become a Park Run Practice is a great way to work towards becoming an active practice.
Park Run Practice is an exciting and innovative initiative, the RCGP is collaborating with parkrun UK to promote the health and wellbeing of staff and patients. Under this initiative, GP practices across the UK are encouraged to develop close links with their local parkrun to become parkrun practices.
-
Find out more.
RCGP Parkrun Practice Toolkit (PDF, 1.5 Mb)
Physical Activity and Lifestyle Toolkit
The Physical Activity and Lifestyle Toolkit from RCGPs can also be downloaded to help healthcare professionals embed physical activity day to day. The toolkit outlines some key principles of what it means for a practice to be 'active'.
Active Together are the local Active Partnership in Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland and would be happy to support you become an Active Practice.
For more information please contact:

Sophie Leming
Sports Development Officer (Active Medicine)
Active Together
I am working flexibly in the office or at home, therefore please contact me via email or phone number provided.
My areas of responsibility are:
- Telephone
- 01509 564871
- s.leming@active-together.org