How do we move physical activity from being seen as an ‘added extra’ in healthcare to becoming an embedded part of health creation, prevention and neighbourhood health?
Movement on Prescription is a national programme led by the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) and funded by Sport England. It aims to make safe, meaningful and accessible movement a more routine part of social prescribing, personalised care and local health pathways. The programme supports Active Partnerships, physical activity providers, social prescribing link workers, primary care partners and wider local systems to strengthen the connections between healthcare and community-based opportunities to move.
Why Movement on Prescription exists
Physical activity plays an important role in helping people manage their health, improve their wellbeing and stay connected to their communities. However, access to movement-based support is not yet equal or consistently embedded within social prescribing and health pathways.
Local systems also start from very different places. Some have established relationships between primary care, social prescribing and the physical activity sector; others are still building the partnerships, infrastructure and shared understanding needed to make this work.
The programme is designed to strengthen how physical activity is embedded within local social prescribing systems at a neighbourhood level in order to reach the communities most impacted by inactivity and health inequalities.
Creating active communities requires more than just provision. It requires a way to connect people to movement that is shaped around their reality. Through social prescribing, movement can become a routine part of health management, supporting people not only to stay well, but to live fully.
Movement on Prescription has been developed to help address these challenges. It will provide practical support for places at different stages of development, helping partners to:
- build stronger relationships between healthcare, social prescribing and the physical activity sector
- develop clearer and more consistent pathways into safe, appropriate and meaningful movement
- strengthen link workers’ ability to include physical activity within personalised conversations and support, including when working with people living with long-term conditions
- connect physical activity and social prescribing with existing primary care and neighbourhood health infrastructure
- learn from effective approaches and adapt them to their own local context
- build stronger evidence, insight and business cases for investment in prevention.
