Active Ageing aims to help people maintain their independence through keeping active in later life. Along with the health benefits of becoming more active, our participants enjoy getting out of the house and meeting like-minded people.
We work closely with NHS professionals, Primary Care Networks, Adult Social Care and other local organisations as part of a wider offer and support network for residents across the Wigan borough. We are a part of the local Falls Strategy and Pathway.
Our team of qualified and experienced instructors support participants to improve their wellbeing, mobility, strength and balance with a flexible programme that can be adapted to meet their aspirations and interests.
Activities are held in a variety of settings across the borough to meet demand and to focus on areas of most need. Home exercise is also provided for people unable to attend sessions in the community.
This could be a result of their health conditions, confidence, or access to transport. This helps us to focus support with people in lower socio-economic groups where these barriers maybe more prevalent. We are currently exploring integrated support with re-ablement which will further strengthen our aim to reduce health inequalities and support hospital discharge.
In Wigan, hospital admissions of the over 65s due to a fall are amongst the highest in Greater Manchester, while GM is above the England average.
Deaths following a falling is also on the rise. The proportion of over 75s in Wigan is high compared to other areas of Greater Manchester and projections show that this population is rapidly increasing.
Be Well (Wigan Council) is committed to taking a life course approach to reducing the risk of falls by providing a range of opportunities to help people improve their balance, increase muscle strength and promote bone health.
During the sessions we work with participants, so they know how to get off the floor safely if they fall, put strategies in place to support them getting up and advice on what to do if they are unable to do so.
This is practiced in sessions and techniques demonstrated to support this. We have had many examples over the years of where this has been successful, and participants have been able to help themselves. Before accessing our activities, they needed to call for help, sometimes from emergency services or where they have had a long lie increasing the risk of complications.
Recently, we have started to explore how we can help our residents who do not access our services to Age Well by increasing awareness about the importance of strength and balance, as well providing resources to help people move more, including the Super 6 Exercises, Winter Wise booklet and home exercise videos.
For Falls Awareness Week in 2022 we took this further, and the team produced a film to demonstrate what to do if you fall following the advice we provide in our sessions.
This was made available on our website and shared with partner organisations.
In December 2022, ahead of the paramedic strikes, when this message was more important than ever, we re-released the film on Wigan Council’s social media channels.
We were aware that it may not be seen by our target audience, but the aim was to provide friends and family with the information to help their loved ones.
Analytics from Facebook showed that the post reached 6,528 people, the content was displayed 6,528 times, engaged with by 357 people and shared 28 times.
We also shared the video with our partners, so it was available to people that they support.
A Strength and Balance participant at Howe Bridge Leisure Centre explained that her husband had fallen at home over Christmas. She assisted her husband following the backward chaining process to get back up. Their granddaughter was there who is a nurse, and she couldn’t believe that he managed to get up using backward chaining steps as shown the group session.
Another Strength and Balance participant, this time at St Anne’s Church, Shevington said he was out for a meal with his wife when. He found another gent had fallen in the toilets. Using the backward chaining process that he has learnt in the group sessions he managed to help the stricken gentleman to get back up to standing (with support from another member of the public). Without knowing these steps this gentleman would’ve required an ambulance callout to get him back on his feet.
Every time we help our residents to stay balanced, avoid an injurious fall or get back on their feet without support we reduce costs in the wider system.
Figures from the Falls Tool correct as of 2016 show that:
Resource – Unit Cost
GP visit – £36.00
A&E visit – admission – £100.53
A&E visit – no admission – £90.29
Ambulance call-out to hospital – £236
Non-hip fracture – hospital inpatient stay – £7,949
Hip fracture – hospital inpatient stay – £8,955
Hip fracture – 1st year follow-up costs – £527
Hip fracture – 2nd year costs – £2,212
Geriatric long-stay – £14,659
We would like to spread the word further and welcome you sharing this film with your own residents:
Ideas and projects are continuously evolving and progressing at GM Active. View our latest news stories below to find out how we are moving as one and contributing towards building the healthy, happy and prosperous Greater Manchester we all aspire to.
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common musculoskeletal condition in older people and poses a large burden to the health and social care system. OA can develop in any joint in the body, but when it affects the knee or hip, mobility can be affected leading to disability.
Over 6.5 million people have sought treatment from their GP for OA of the hip and knee. Almost all (98%) of initial knee replacements are due to osteoarthritis.
There are several risk factors for the development of OA, including increasing age, gender, genetic factors, and previous joint injury. The largest modifiable risk factor is obesity.
Given the projected increases in obesity, and the growth and ageing of the population, the proportion of people affected by OA is expected to rise.
Data from Arthritis Research UK estimates that a total of 28,133 people aged 45 or over in Wigan live with knee osteoarthritis. This means that of the total Wigan population aged 45 years or over, 20.2% are estimated to have knee osteoarthritis (overall prevalence).
This is higher than the overall prevalence for England as a whole – 18.2%. Of the total number of people with knee osteoarthritis, 12,478 are male (male prevalence 18.4%) and 15,655 are female (female prevalence 21.8%).
It is estimated that there are 9,990 people with severe knee osteoarthritis, which is 7.2% of the population aged 45 years or over. It is also estimated that a total of 16,416 people aged 45 or over in Wigan live with hip osteoarthritis.
This means that of the total Wigan population aged 45 years or over, 11.8% are estimated to have hip osteoarthritis (overall prevalence). This is higher than the overall England prevalence of 10.9%.
Of the total number of people with hip osteoarthritis, 5,900 are male (male prevalence 8.7%) and 10,516 are female (female prevalence 14.7%). It is estimated that there are 5,106 people in Wigan with severe hip osteoarthritis, which is 3.7% of the population aged 45 years or over.
The cost of hip and knee replacements throughout the borough is approximately £4.5 million a year.
Traditionally within Wigan, we have worked closely with clinical teams within secondary care.
Across all Be Well programmes in 2022, 21% of all referrals reported Musculo-skeletal as a condition.
On the long-term condition programme, we had a total of 2,074 referrals (2022), of which 765 (37%) identified MSK (pain/Injury) and 489 (24%) identified arthritis as their primary medical condition. 225 (11%) had both on their medical history.
Analysis of these 1,029 unique referrals, shows 783 had a first contact with the Be Well team, of these 191 did not take up the pain management pathway programme. Of the 592 that did engage, 450 (76%) completed the programme.
In Sept 22 we started to look at a more proactive approach and look to engage with residents earlier on and prevent them entering the pain/medication cycle.
We wanted to place ourselves at the front end of pain management and identify first instances of pain. NICE makes recommendations about the diagnosis, treatment, and care of people with osteoarthritis. These recommendations include holistic assessment of people with osteoarthritis and core treatments which include activity and exercise, and weight loss if the person is overweight or obese.
We wanted to embed Be Well into this holistic assessment.
We saw the role of the First Contact Practitioners/Physiotherapists (FCPs) as an ideal opportunity to change the way we tackled this issue and the perfect enablers.
The vast majority of musculoskeletal FCPs are physiotherapists with enhanced skills. They can help patients with musculoskeletal issues such as back, neck and joint pain by:
Patients with back and joint pain, including conditions such as arthritis, can contact their local physiotherapist directly, rather than waiting to see a GP or being referred to hospital.
The delivery model was designed to align the FCP leads with Be Well Wellbeing specialist instructors across the seven PCNs. Referrals were assigned directly to the WSI from the FCP and contacted in a timely manner.
The teams have been meeting at our leisure centre sites to visit classes and see facilities, with the aim for the clinical team to be based on within Be Well facilities.
We utilised our wider Be Well physical/nutritional opportunities to support participants including our strength and balance/weight management programme/leisure offer.
More specifically we delivered the ESCAPE Pain Programme (EP), an education and exercise intervention within our leisure centres. This is a six-week intervention for people with knee and hip OA, which Wigan has a higher rate of than other GM areas.
Delivered in 12 sessions, twice weekly, it incorporates a progressive exercise circuit (40 min) and an educational component (usually the last 15-20 mins). The aim of the programme is to reduce pain in the joints and increase mobility and function.
We wanted to evaluate lifestyle factors such as mental health and physical inactivity and more importantly its impact on musculoskeletal health with specific questionnaires (HOOs and KOOS).
The infographic below highlights the impact since starting the new pathway in Sept 22. Including increasing physical activity levels (IPAQ – a physical activity questionnaire looking at vigorous, moderate, walking) and improvements in mental health score (WHO-5).
We mentioned the Escape Pain earlier in our model and we deliver 5/6 cohorts per year at two sites across the borough: Robin Park Sports Centre and Leigh Leisure Centre (10-12 per year).
We have had 305 attendances at our EP cohorts since the start of our work with the FCPs (Sept 22).
We collected pre and post outcome questionnaires for specific OA measures, HOOS (Hip dysfunction and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score) and KOOS (Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score) to determine if a participant has decreased pain and increased function and mobility. The higher the score the more improvements that have been made.
This coupled with the increased IPAQ scores from the infographic suggest a significant impact on the participants. Often introducing PA to those with hip/knee pain and dysfunction can lead to a short-term increase/worsening of symptoms.
A functional test (30 second sit to stand test) testing leg strength and endurance was completed at baseline and post cohort. The average score increased from 9.5 to 13.5, a 42% increase in functional capacity.
Since the scheme was implemented, Be Well has seen great results and stories from people like Roy – benefiting from the range of choices now available to them:
Ideas and projects are continuously evolving and progressing at GM Active. View our latest news stories below to find out how we are moving as one and contributing towards building the healthy, happy and prosperous Greater Manchester we all aspire to.
Tameside MBC/Active Tameside are responsible for the coordination of the programme and are continuously looking to develop partnerships with community sports clubs, physical activity/faith groups and schools with the main purpose being that the partner organisation will deliver holiday programmes independently on behalf of Fuel4Fun, and its brand.
Tameside as a borough has a high number of families living in poverty and deprivation. Tackling school holiday hunger is a key element of the funding.
As part of the Fuel4Fun offer, each eligible family receives a hamper delivered to the family home
Each family receives a hamper delivered to the family home; each hamper contains enough food to feed a family of four for five nights.
The hampers contain fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh meat, and ambient products.
Alongside this, each meal is accompanied with a menu card with step-by-step guides to create a family approach to home-cooked, healthy meals with the support of online tuition.
Menu cards are created in partnership with Tameside Children’s Nutritional Health Team to ensure each meal meets nutritional guidance.
In one 12-month period the funding enabled us to support 4,935 individual families with food hampers (some families receiving five hampers over the summer to support the need in Tameside) with a total of 24,675 meals delivered.
On top of helping to break down barriers to access sports and physical activities, children are also encouraged to develop life-skills such as gardening on the trust’s community allotments and cooking their own healthy lunches.
Alongside these activities, each child received a healthy lunch, with each child being actively encouraged to get involved in the meal’s preparation and making, before eating their own lunch, exploring new foods, and developing their own recipes.To create a transferable approach, each child receives an activity bag to take home which includes sports items, arts and crafts and a water bottle, giving each family the opportunity to increase activity levels at home, boosting their health and wellbeing, and supporting positive behaviour changes.
What’s more, Fuel4Fun has created a number of volunteering and paid employment opportunities.
Notwithstanding, the incredible social impact Fuel4Fun has had on young people and their families, it has provided the opportunity for Adult Day Service clients from our Everybody Can programme – which provides services and provision for children and adults with additional needs and/or disabilities – the opportunity to gain valuable life skills through volunteering and paid roles.
Fuel4Fun has had a huge impact: delivering 6,019 food boxes in 2021 and almost doubling delivery in 2022 with 11,300 food boxes delivered to families.
Fuel4Fun also delivered a wide range of activities over the summer engaging with 13 primary schools, 11 clubs, 6 PVIs, five active sites, five youth provisions and four SEND groups.
Each setting delivered a diverse, interactive, and exciting timetable, including activities such as: Commonwealth games tournaments, social media awareness courses, nutrition education sessions, swimming lessons, the introduction of the daily mile and bike ability courses.
Additionally, we engaged with 1,500 young people at our Tameside Rocks Community Festival and a further 100 young people who attended our youth adventure days.
Ideas and projects are continuously evolving and progressing at GM Active. View our latest news stories below to find out how we are moving as one and contributing towards building the healthy, happy and prosperous Greater Manchester we all aspire to.
Data shows the Brinnington area of Stockport is one of the most deprived in the North West, with lower life expectancy rates, poor mental health, and higher levels of physical inactivity.
All those factors aligned to make to make Brinnington a prime area to focus on a whole systems approach, enabling us to consider everything that may help people become more active in their locality.
Brinnington Park Leisure Complex is an asset within the community but it wasn’t playing the role it could and should.
Adapting our planning by taking all those considerations into account have been important in evolving our approach to support the community.
To do this we identified:
This presented us with three vital questions:
Our approach created a significant increase in usage within six months, more than doubling by going from 4,441 visits to 9,537.
Nina Burns, Communities Manager, Groundwork, says: “It has been an exciting journey and one which has seen Brinnington Leisure Complex become a central space for a wide range of community activities for all.”
Behaviour and culture change – social activity engagement and conversations before participation.
Creating social movement – trust building with local community connectors and recognising the strength of word of mouth to promote activity.
Sustainability – empowering people to be part of interventions and activities such as community planting schemes.
Delivery designed by locals – focus on the decisions from the community and support them through funding and capacity.
Links to community assets and organisations – support local assets and partners to develop ideas further.
Partner understanding and awareness – varied usage to explore how partners use the centre and understand physical activity more, it’s not all about going to the gym.
Evaluation and impact – more qualitative and impact reporting of participation and engagement.
Ideas and projects are continuously evolving and progressing at GM Active. View our latest news stories below to find out how we are moving as one and contributing towards building the healthy, happy and prosperous Greater Manchester we all aspire to.
Blog by Jon Keating, Head of Operations, GM Active
In a highly personal and emotional reflection on losing his mum Judith (Judy) to cancer, GM Active Head of Business Operations, Jon Keating, is left with some burning ‘what if’ questions – and calls for the selflessness required if we as a sector are going to help others with any long-term or life-threatening health condition.
It’s been a tough first six months of 2024. My mum lost her battle to cancer in late January, and it’s been a real struggle to find my feet and a new normal.
What was frightening was the speed with which the cancer took hold.
Mum – a big Corrie fan pictured here with me at the Rovers Return – had initially survived breast cancer after it was first diagnosed in 2019 (going through cancer treatment during the pandemic was especially tough for Mum and for Dad supporting her).
This was secondary cancer (undetected) that spread rapidly through her body. As you can imagine, I’ve been through the full gamut of emotions and continue to do so, with much anger and asking why?
Mum maintained positivity right to the end, even talking publicly at an event at Leicester Tigers’ ground about cancer care to help others.
It’s that level of selflessness that we must show if we as a sector are going to help others across Greater Manchester with any long-term or life-threatening health condition.
That brings me to wonder whether Prehab4Cancer would have helped Mum’s chances of survival?
My parents live in Leicestershire not Greater Manchester, so the prehab programme wasn’t available.
That said, breast cancer, as things stand, isn’t part of the prehab pathway in GM either. So, the ‘what if’ question burns brightly in my head. What if prehab was available in all regions? What if prehab was available for all cancer types?
As I supported Dad sorting through her things, I’ve found fitness equipment, nutrition, diet, wellness books and
much more besides. So whilst a prehab service wasn’t available, the right advice and recommendations clearly were
However, lots of this ‘stuff’ was still brand new. Mum was never what you would call an active person, caring far too much about others and her family – three children who all swam competitively.
She saw us frequenting leisure centres and pools and even worked at a pool/leisure centre for many years, and yet physical activity still didn’t resonate or matter to her as it should have.
This brings me to our Active Academic Partnership (AAP) research with Keele University. Physical activity and exercise has to matter to the individual. But when it doesn’t? Greater minds than mine are working hard to find answers.
As a sector, any language and behaviour change clearly hasn’t engaged Mum and spurred her into action and neither did I, either as a swimmer or working in our industry.
So, how do we change those mindsets?
Looking back to 2019 when Mum was first diagnosed, this was a catalyst to start lots of activity, mainly walking and some tai-chi. Was this too little, too late? As I say, the ‘what if’ questions continue to burn.
Strength training, higher intensity activity were absent for Mum. Yet we know from prehab and well documented research that this is really important. How do we land those messages? How do we raise that awareness to hopefully reduce cancer risks and help fight against it?
Looking back to 2019 when Mum was first diagnosed, this was a catalyst to start lots of activity, mainly walking and some tai-chi. Was this too little, too late? As I say, the ‘what if’ questions continue to burn.
Strength training, higher intensity activity were absent for Mum. Yet we know from prehab and well documented research that this is really important. How do we land those messages? How do we raise that awareness to hopefully reduce cancer risks and help fight against it?
Whilst it’s too late for my mum, I hope the lessons I’ve learnt can continue to support the growth of prehab for all cancers not just in Greater Manchester but nationally and internationally.
In fact, my commitment to my dying mum was to endeavour to do my bit in making this happen.
This is my call to the sector and the system for this to happen. Let’s do this in memory of everyone who has suffered the loss of loved ones to cancer.
The repercussions of losing a loved one are devastating – and there’s more work to be done in this space too.
Let’s take my dad as an example.
Dad was a rock for Mum from the first diagnosis right through to her final breath. Married for 50 years, together for 54 through thick and thin, he has been left devastated, heartbroken (as we all have) and importantly very lonely.
Physical activity groups are helping him through this really tough time. In particular golf, walking football and walking groups. Of course, there are important physical benefits, but the mental health benefits, and vitally the social support network, within these groups and clubs are invaluable at this time.
But an interesting observation is that my dad copes better Mondays to Fridays than at weekends. Why?
Well, many of these groups and activities focus on midweek activities – hence a limited social support network on a Saturday and Sunday, which by his own admission, is making weekends feel extremely long.
This is something else we should be considering more as a sector.
And finally, I’d also like to flag the personal impact on my own health and wellness during this period. Back in December 2023, I used a boditrax machine and was delighted that I had a metabolic age of 30 at the actual age of 45.
Fast forward six months; less gym, less running, less swimming but still lots of walking. Frighteningly, using the same machine, I recorded a metabolic age of 43.
OK, I’ve since turned 46, but regardless, that swing in a relatively short space of time shocked me to the core.
I’m back on it again now and confident I will bring this back down again, but that personal impact is one that many aren’t even aware of.
Such consoles and the fantastic model Technogym has just launched shouldn’t be exclusive to gym members.
We need them in reception areas, or even better still in community settings for everyone to access; to help everyone understand the impact that a lack of activity or the right types of activity can have on their personal health and wellbeing.
I’ll finish with another ‘what if’. If Mum or others like her had had access to such equipment and the reports it can produce, would this have made a difference?
Cornerstone Design and Marketing has forged an unrivalled reputation within the leisure and wellbeing industry, with many clients – including GM Active – joining the Oldham-based agency via word-of-mouth recommendations from other leisure industry operators.
Its full-service marketing offer covers design, digital, print/signage, marketing strategy, web design and maintenance, and PR – all of which have been utilised for the benefit of GM Active at one time or another.
Cornerstone DM is one of our longest serving Strategic Business Partners, and here MD and founder, David Wadsworth, speaks about his agency’s ethos and why it has put the full force of its marketing muscle behind GM Active.
I launched Cornerstone from a room at my parents’ home 17 years ago, and from day one, I’ve always strongly believed that good business is based on the three Rs – relationships, results and reputation. I’ve also been a stickler for honesty, integrity and authenticity, choosing clients carefully.
As an agency, we’ve worked closely with a diverse range of leisure clients for well over a decade and developed an intrinsic understanding of their unique markets, target audiences and stakeholders.
So, the simple answer to the question is we want to work with GM Active to help it deliver more.
Population health and wellbeing is a fundamental part of our first world society. But it’s also on a knife edge – concerns about childhood obesity and what that is storing up for the future; poor lifestyle choices among the adult population and the impact that is having on the here and now, particularly on the NHS.
If we don’t tackle these issues and encourage more people to live healthier, happier – and longer – lives then that is a fundamental failure.
GM Active recognises the issues and is working tirelessly to create solutions. We wouldn’t be choosing our clients carefully if we didn’t want to leverage the three Rs and be part of that movement.
Cornerstone’s services for GM Active are almost entirely B2B and include strategic marketing, PR, media handling and planning, as well as aiding the growth of its digital footprints, brand reach and recognition through social media activity.
Our work includes creating press releases and social media campaigns about services, topics and themes, which have led to diverse national and regional media coverage across print, digital and broadcast media, including leading B2B leisure and health magazines.
Our PR nous was invaluable in helping GM Active members stave off potential negative media coverage about pool closures.
Meanwhile, our social media activity has complemented the positive media coverage and helped to raise GM Active’s profile on LinkedIn and Twitter.
As a result of our input and support – and combined with the excellent work being done by GM Active and its collective of members – GM Active itself, its Pivot to Active Wellbeing, the Transformational Leadership Programme and the pioneering Prehab4Cancer programme are all seen as beacons of excellence by the health and wellbeing industry, as other strategic business partners have testified.
Quite a difficult question, but the answer is rooted in our ongoing work for GM Active and is already work in progress.
It’s part of our strategy to raise the organisation’s profile not only across the leisure insutry, but across the wider health, NHS, patient care and government stakeholders, in order to drive improved awareness of the social value and impact leisure can play in reducing health inequalities and driving a healthier society.
This will be achieved through a fully integrated marketing strategy, transformation of the GM Active website into a nationally recognised ‘site of reference’, and marketing outreach where expertise is shared and thought leadership is delivered to heighten GM Active’s growing profile.
Our work will continue to place case studies illustrating the excellent work being done by members of the GM Active collective in the right channels in order to bridge the gap between health and leisure, along with academic insight into what is needed to make that happen.
We’ll continue to work with GM Active to ensure that more of the same continues.
Continue to see the value in what we bring to GM Active and work with us to add even more in whichever way we can and spread the message of other operators across the GM region and further afield.
We are willing and waiting to build on what we have already achieved in unison as the next phase of the Pivot to Active Wellbeing comes to fruition, as the P4C programme expands, as more innovative training initiatives are introduced, and more case studies are ready to be highlighted.
GM Active needs to maintain momentum and in doing so we will continue to spread the word.
No one else is doing what GM Active does and it punches way above its weight given the size of the core organisation.
It combines two very important elements – innovation and action.
It has a clear vision of what the leisure industry needs to achieve to improve population health and wellbeing. While there has been a lot of talk about how the sector needs to ‘pivot’ (or even if pivot is the correct word), GM Active has stepped up and is actually doing something to make the pivot to active wellbeing a reality.
It champions the excellent work its members are doing, proving that the leisure industry is a worthy partner for healthcare professionals to help those living with long term health conditions, or going through rehab and recovery, to be the best they can be, regardless of the journey they are on.
If you want to know more about Cornerstone, you can find their website here.
Transformational leaders, continuous professional development and digital staff induction – the impact of our strategic business partner Future Fit runs deep throughout GM Active.
Future Fit’s Group Operations Director, Tom Godwin, was joined by two of his team, Lewis Thompson, Business Development Manager, and Amy Sabin, Marketing Executive, to discuss the partnership and how the work being done here in Greater Manchester is beyond cutting edge and priceless for the nation.
Here is their collective thoughts….
What GM Active is achieving in Greater Manchester is seen nationally as an exemplar of working towards a common goal of getting the community healthier and more active.
The impact this can have is very exciting, and seeing what is going on, we want to do whatever we can to support it.
We’ve worked with some of the key figures in GM Active for a long time, such as (Chair) Andy King and John Oxley, Chief Executive at Life Leisure.
Effectively, what we do is offer workforce training, we develop qualifications, we develop learning for people. So, for example, transformational leadership didn’t exist, we created it with John Oxley for GM Active and now the Transformational Leadership Programme is a national product.
One of the big things in our industry that we haven’t always had is collaboration. What we’ve learned off the back of GM Active is the more we speak to each other, the more we learn and that can only result in a greater impact on the good that we can do for the communities around the UK.
When we travel around the country and speak to other operators, we are constantly asked ‘how do GM Active do it?’, or ‘what does GM Active do?’.
GM Active is a step ahead and people are trying to learn from what’s going on here. We’re proud to play our part.
A lot! We have the aforementioned Transformational Leadership Programme (TLP) and so far that’s trained 80 transformational leaders across the GM ecosystem, who are all having a huge impact.
We’re going to continue TLP over the coming years and train about 40 would-be leaders a year going forwards.
We’ve then got the GM Active skills academy with training around behaviour change and working with people with cancer, who get the support they need from the Prehab4Cancer programme.
There’s material on empathy, emotional resilience, and mental health in a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) hub that’s available to anyone that works in the space to ensure they are geared up and ready to move towards the pivot with a full understanding of what it’s all about.
The third strand we’ve worked on with GM Active has been staff induction. We have developed a very detailed induction and the idea behind it is to make sure that everyone buys in and understands what the mission is and the role they play in the wider system.
We’re now planning a set of qualifications around management and leadership. So, TLP is more about systems thinking, transformative leadership, whereas we’re developing introductory skills to being a team leader.
It’s about leading people, communication, budgets, the basics of marketing – all those things that people operating in the duty manager up to general manager space might need to become better at their job. All of it is set and framed within the pivot.
One of the things we’re tackling is helping the GM Active workforce, which is predominantly made up of young people, deal with older customers. Some trusts have noticed the gap and a disconnect.
It really emphasizes the importance of our partnership with GM active. They have identified this gap, this demographic they’re not reaching, and we can provide the training needed. For example, older adults, people with long term health conditions, these are all people that it is essential to reach with the pivot to active wellbeing, and that’s what we’re able to facilitate.
Firstly, we want to remain a part of the GM Active support mechanism, doing what’s right for the future so GM Active can keep moving forward and doing the fantastic work it does.
This is quite a difficult question in that every single partner, every single community, is different.
It’s hard to know what else is needed, but if it’s in our field of expertise we want to provide the right education, the right focus to help them support the needs they have in that particular community.
Keep doing the good work it is doing, it’s as simple as that!
It’s important for us though that GM Active demonstrates the importance of learning and the impact it has on employees.
As a sector, we struggle with staff retention. A lot of that is down to the perception of the work they do, but by upskilling staff with extra training, so they can reach specific populations, it can make them feel more valued as part of the wider public health workforce and not just someone who works in a leisure centre.
And GM Active should keep challenging us. We’ve spoken about the different needs and focuses of different communities, and if there’s a specific problem, ask us to help to fix it. We can all keep moving in the same direction, even though there could be different processes as it’s never going to be the same everywhere.
If you want to know more about Future Fit, you can find their website here.
Exercise is just as much about recovery and regeneration as it is about pushing yourself, says Jeff Davis, Managing Director of our Strategic Business Partner, Reach Wellness.
A veteran of the fitness industry with more than 35 years’ experience and a BSc (Hons.) in Sports Science to his name, Jeff is passionate about the health and wellness benefits that being more active can achieve, recognising our Pivot to Active Wellbeing has a crucial role to play in supporting an ageing population and helping to tackle the health conditions that come with the territory.
Whilst Reach Wellness supplies standard fitness equipment it specialises in innovative niche products that supplement and complement the traditional gym.
Here, Jeff explains why his company joined our SBP programme, shares his philosophy towards exercise, how sometimes ‘less is more’, and why patience is a virtue in pursuit of your goals.
As our name suggests, we are keen to reach out and make a difference and help people reach their personal wellness goals. This is a timely opportunity to work with GM Active, whose members run 99 publicly owned leisure and physical activity assets/centres to support health and wellness.
We share GM Active’s vision to improve wellness among Greater Manchester’s communities, so we think there’s a really good alignment with our own goals.
Notwithstanding that, I’ve also known some of the key players in GM Active, such as the Chair, Andy King, and Life Leisure CEO, John Oxley, for many years and respect their ability to get things done.
I think there’s good opportunity to provide what we do at existing sites, who are working in a traditional sort of way (with cardiovascular and resistance equipment), particularly in support of the pivot to active wellbeing, which is where I believe we can contribute.
It still feels that we’re in the early stages of understanding how we can interact with GM Active, and I think opportunities like this blog will help us raise our profile and increase awareness of what we have to offer, which sort of answers the first question as well.
We have had some good conversations with members of the GM Active collective, and understand that it takes time to understand and change. We’re resilient and we believe we can eventually get over the line at some of the GM Active sites once they fully realise what we have to offer (and the funds are available).
Reach Wellness has been established for more than 20 years and we have equipment in public leisure trust sites and private sites throughout the UK, so we are already a trusted business.
As I said, we’ve had some good conversations with chief execs within GM Active, but they are busy people, they have a lot of priorities and financial stresses to juggle, so we need to communicate effectively with the relevant personnel.
We are aware of the financial pressures, and that’s why some pools have had to close. But we still have to maintain a view that it’s important to provide meaningful differences too, because we have an ageing population living longer with more ailments to consider. Active wellbeing is about physical and mental health.
That’s where, I think, things like better movement preparation, mobilisation, recovery, regeneration, flexibility, stretching, coordination, balance, and agility – these are all elements that are not spoken to or offered properly on the traditional gym floor.
And that’s not criticism, it’s just an observation – to say look there’s companies like ourselves who have a unique offering in this respect. That’s exactly why we thought it was a good opportunity to partner strategically with GM Active.
I would be delighted to create more opportunities to demonstrate the benefits of our equipment and we’re open to suggestions in that respect.
We have a comprehensive installation of FIVE Concept Equipment in Sale. I would be happy to organise open days for anyone and everyone who wants to see it, or if someone is making a grant application for new equipment, we’d be happy to provide a quotation.
I’ve been in the industry since 1985 and I think I have developed a sensitive antenna not only for what’s going on now, but also for future trends. Recovery and regeneration are beginning to be grasped with more people saying we need that on the gym floor as the awareness increases.
We’ve all got to know about the benefits of an ice bath (after exercise) for example, but that’s not practical on a gym floor. That’s why products like our Sensopro, which provides coordination and balance training, and FIVE Concept, which is all about mobility, are important pieces of equipment and make total sense when people see and experience them for training purposes.
Well, this conversation is really welcome, for starters! Because it’s going on the GM Active website, we can use it as a point of reference by steering would-be GM Active customers to it to understand us.
We know we have a lot of work to do. Money only goes so far these days, and I know that presently we’re probably on the ‘nice to have’ list rather than the priority list, but our equipment can help a gym differentiate itself from its competitors.
We’re all about getting people to wake up to the fact that it’s not just about going to the gym and going hell for leather.
New Year is a good example. After Christmas, lots of people say they’re going to get fit, so they go to the gym Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and they’re broken by Friday. It’s just how people are.
‘If you want to know more about Reach Wellness, you can find their website here.
Innerva provides niche exercise equipment designed for people who don’t go to a gym or a leisure centre.
If that sounds at odds with being a strategic business partner with GM Active, whose members run 99% of the publicly owned fitness and leisure facilities and assets across Greater Manchester, there is solid logic in the affiliation, as Laura Childs, Innerva’s Marketing and Communications Manager, explains.
Power assisted exercise equipment (not unlike the principle of an electric bike) allow an older demographic and people with one or more long term conditions embark on a journey to better health – and even find happiness.
Here, Laura outlines how that becomes possible, and why Innerva and GM Active make perfect partners.
First and foremost, we view the work that GM Active is doing, not only in Greater Manchester but in the industry as whole, as hugely important from a health and physical activity perspective because of the impact it’s going to have on population health, particularly among the older population.
Our Innerva solution is aimed at a completely different demographic to those who regularly frequent a leisure facility. It’s aimed at the people who don’t.
They don’t for two main reasons – one is that they have a long term health condition, or they have a number of health conditions and don’t see a traditional gym environment as accessible to them. They’re intimidated, they need something less scary and somewhere more welcoming to start their journey to being more active.
I’ve spent 19 years of my career in Greater Manchester, and I sat on GM Active’s marketing sub group before I moved to Innerva, and that’s really helped me to understand there are so many similarities in what we both want to achieve.
So, our mission is to improve the health of older people within the whole of the UK, and further afield because we export, and that is very much aligned with a great many of GM Active’s core ambitions.
We are here to support the message and increase awareness about the importance of providing the means for an older demographic, and people with long term health conditions to be more active.
While we don’t currently have equipment in any GM Active sites, we have experience of dealing with the ‘health’ part of the pivot to active wellbeing.
We’ve had a suite of equipment in a brain and spinal injuries clinic near Salford Royal for about 10 years.
We have started a pilot project in Wishaw in Lanarkshire with Strathclyde University and Wishaw Hospital where three of our pieces of equipment have gone on to an acute stroke ward as part of a technology enriched rehabilitation hub.
It has been modelled by Strathclyde University around health improvement and/or or outcomes for stroke patients to assess the impact this type of model can have.
But equally where do those patients then go when they’re discharged? NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) guidelines have changed this year from 45 minutes per day, five days a week of physical therapy or exercise therapy to three hours, five days a week.
This is about a journey over a period of time after being discharged. What we’re trying to do is look at the learnings from this and work with organisations to answer the question. Is there an opportunity to go into publicly owned facilities, or into leisure centres?
Partnerships only start to get off the ground in the first 12 months and I think we’re looking further ahead than that as to how we can move forward and hopefully support with Innerva equipment within some GM Active facilities.
But if not within the facilities, maybe within more hospital facilities where we can try and become a partner that bridges some of the gaps between health and leisure.
We operate in a niche market, we’re very targeted, and we’re already working with health and rehabilitation partners.
So, I think the answer to that is twofold. One is the learnings from working with specific condition groups and the other is that we are heavily immersed in research and development.
I’ve mentioned Wishaw already. We also work with the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, which we have done for a number of years, conducting a large number of studies on people with neurological conditions and the benefits not just of our equipment but physical exercise, physical activity and repetitive movement.
And we work with Manchester Metropolitan University where we’ve developed two pieces of kit for wheelchair users so that they can exercise.
The whole collaboration piece is already there, but we’re trying to support it to achieve even higher awareness of the importance of GM Active and the work that we’re both doing in the space around providing for those people who need it most.
Partnerships are a two-way thing, so we’d like GM Active to continue supporting our messaging, which is exactly what it is doing.
We don’t tend to bombard people with messaging that is irrelevant to them, but I think the communication of our message encouraging people to have a look at what we are all about is important.
Being on members’ radars isn’t about selling equipment, we’re not here for that, as strange as it may sound.
I know from my time within GM Active, that the people who are involved are passionate about changing the leisure/health landscape.
If you want to know more about Innerva, you can find their website here.
