Barking and Dagenham health services invest over £1 million locally in physical activity for children and young people
Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust today announces a new investment worth over £1 million to tackle childhood obesity and the health problems this causes in later life. To increase the low rates of physical activity in the borough – the lowest in London and third lowest in the country – the PCT is working in partnership with the local council and the Amateur Swimming Association London on a radical three-year programme to encourage the youth of Barking and Dagenham to lead more active lives.
The programme aims to improve short and long-term health on an unprecedented scale. It takes both a universal and a targeted approach to make a difference to individuals and to achieve the culture change needed to generate a wholesale shift in public health. The size of the problem necessitates a massive change, on a scale not attempted before in the UK: industrial-scale change for children and young people in Barking and Dagenham.
There are three initial phases being planned. The first is to provide greater access to swimming facilities and tuition for under 18s. This will include free out-of-school hours swimming, subsidised tuition and free pool time for schools and free, facilitated and structured mother and toddler swimming sessions. The aim is to increase the numbers of children and young people enjoying swimming, from toddling to teenage years and through into adulthood. There is also development of eight swimming and leisure focused apprenticeships for young people, leading to level 2 NVQ qualifications. Phase One: free swimming will launch for the public over the summer and the subsidised access will start from September.
Phase two is to introduce a youth access card for children and young people in the borough. Working like an oyster card, it will make it easier for young people to access services by reducing their need to register individually. Young people will be able simply and safely to access age-appropriate services, such as subsidised leisure activities, condom distribution and cashless school meals. It will be possible to link activity to rewards – for example, the more healthy meal choices in the canteen, the more free leisure services available to the individual. At the same time, it will help services to gather accurate and anonymous demographic and activity data, enabling better planning for the future. This links to the London Connects work and national work on youth access cards.
Phase three will increase uptake and access to affordable healthy school meals. This phase will bring together the lessons learnt from breakfast clubs and fruit schemes in schools, with pilot work already taking place to increase the uptake of free school meals. Although there is already an increase in uptake associated with targeted work, Phase three is about embedding and globalising these approaches to ensure that all children and young people in education have at least one healthy meal a day.
For this industrial-scale change programme, the PCT is working in partnership with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the Amateur Swimming Association, linking with the physical activity agenda funded by Sport England, and as Phases 2 and 3 develop new partners are coming on board.
Matthew Cole, Director of Health Improvement at Barking and Dagenham PCT, said, “These initiatives will revolutionise the experience of young people living, learning and playing in the borough. Industrial-scale change is a whole-system approach. It means scaling up good practice so that all children and young people in the borough can benefit. We're starting with swimming, but there are a wide range of industrial-scale options in sport and other areas which we hope will evolve from this approach. We are already looking at basketball, rugby and music, all of which have positive impacts on health and well being.”
Colin Brown, Director of Amateur Swimming Association London, said,"I welcome the opportunity to work of a project of this scale and vision in Barking & Dagenham. We already manage similar projects in Islington and Lewisham as part of the National Everyday Swim Project which are getting large number of participants into pools. This investment shows that swimming has proved that it can be an effective tool to reduce health inequalities".
ENDS –
For further information, contact Rowan Taylor, Head of Communications, on 020 8532 6220.
Notes to editors
1. Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust is responsible for improving the health and well-being of local people by ensuring that appropriate services are available in the right place and at the right time. The PCT does this by entering into agreements with health care providers, such as hospitals, to provide a wide range of different health services, ensuring that patients have a choice about where they go for treatment. It also directly provides community-based health services such as health visiting, physiotherapy and district nursing, and is responsible for developing primary care services in conjunction with GPs, dentists, opticians and pharmacists. Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust was set up in April 2001 and employs around 640 staff.
2. According to the Active People survey in 05/06, Barking and Dagenham currently has the lowest physical activity rates in London, and the third lowest in the whole of the country, with 50% of its residents doing no physical activity at all.
3. Swimming is widely acknowledged as a highly beneficial to health. It is both a skill that can save lives and an enjoyable activity that can be carried on into adulthood. It requires no special equipment and can be enjoyed alone or with friends/ family. Like other physical activities, it improves mental well-being. More borough residents, when asked what physical activity they would like to do (if any), said they would like to swim than said they would like to take part in other activities (General Household Survey 2002).
4. Each phase of this initial 3-step programme will have a significant impact on short and long-term health in the borough, and will result in large-scale culture change and health improvement. Increasing physical activity through swimming and easier access to other activities, while also improving the healthiness of school dinners, will tackle many health concerns including obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and mental health. It will ultimately increase life expectancy.
5. The provision of subsidised tuition and free pool time to schools will increase the number of young people in school undertaking at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity level sport at least three times a week in a measurable and visible way across the borough.
6. Phase one will provide free adult and toddler swimming classes accessed through the children centres, buy-one-get-one-free swimming classes for schools, and free out of school hours access to swimming for young people.
7. The PCT has invested £650,000 with in-kind support from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, totalling over £1 million.
8. Amateur Swimming Association London (London Swimming) is part of the Amateur Swimming Association which is the governing body for all swimming related activities.
