SOUTH SOMERSET NEWS: Click into Activity cash boost for communities

INACTIVE people in and around three South Somerset communities are set to benefit from a successful £334,000 lottery funding bid led by the district council.

The ‘Click into Activity’ project is one of only 16 projects nationally to receive investment from Sport England’s Get Healthy, Get Active fund which aims to get inactive people moving.

The successful bid was the result of a partnership between Somerset Health and Wellbeing Board, University of the West of England in Bristol, Somerset Activity and Sports Partnership, South Somerset District Council and the CLICK GP Federation which covers the area of Chard, Ilminster and Crewkerne.

Charlie Coward, healthy lifestyles officer at South Somerset District Council and lead officer for the successful bid, said: “Click into Activity will give local GP surgeries the opportunity to offer healthy lifestyle support to inactive patients.

“The aim of this project is to address a lack of intensive healthy lifestyle interventions for people who are diagnosed as either diabetic, pre-diabetic or hypertensive.

“It will work by referring identified patients to exercise specialists who will then offer one-to-one support, signposting and a ‘buddy system’. These patients will be encouraged to participate in sports sessions which are specifically designed for inactive people with long term health conditions.”

Sport England’s director of community sport, Mike Diaper, said: “Physical activity plays a powerful role in improving people’s health. The evidence is absolutely clear on this. But it also has a wider impact.

“We want to highlight the positive and valuable contribution that sport can make to people’s health and well-being but also the economy.

“These programmes will do exactly that. By putting prevention at the forefront of their work, they will help to reduce the risk of inactive people developing serious health problems and in doing so, save taxpayer’s money. That is the power of sport in action.”

PHOTO – TOP AND RIGHT: Health walkers setting off from the Summervale GP surgery in Ilminster.

Emeline Dean, GP partner and chair of CLICK Federation, said: “As a group of GPs we are all supportive of the proposal for physical activity advisors to be based within the practices to try to improve health outcomes for Diabetic, Prediabetic and Hypertensive patients. This project has the potential for far reaching consequences throughout the whole population.”

The district council’s leisure and culture spokesman, Cllr Sylvia Seal, said: “We are so pleased to have been a part of this successful bid. Working with a wide range of partners will enable us to help a large number of people in and around the three communities to make a positive contribution to their long term health.”

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