With Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, announcing his resignation this morning and Andy Burnham as a possible successor, the fitness, health and wellness sector is evaluating its position.
Burnham understands the importance of physical activity and has been a strong advocate, so is this what the sector is waiting for?
In an interview with HCM’s sister publication, Sports Management, before the pandemic Burnham – as Mayor of Manchester – spoke about physical activity being a passion for him and his goal to get 75 per cent of people in Manchester physically activity by 2025.
He used his devolved power in Manchester to pivot GPs from a medical model to a social model, expanding their role to treat isolation and physical inactivity as aggressively as clinical symptoms.
Under the Active Practices Charter, GP surgeries across Greater Manchester partnered with local leisure trusts to encourage GPs to connect patients with walking groups and local fitness sessions.
He also championed Parkrun and the Daily Mile in schools.
According to Sport England Active Lives data, 76.4 per cent of adults in Manchester exercise for at least 30 minutes a week, with 66.3 per cent meeting the WHO guidelines of 150 minutes. The smoking rate is also relatively low at 17 per cent.
“I’ve always had a simple belief that activity is good for people and also good for society,” said Burnham.
“If physical activity was placed at the heart of primary care, we’d be in a different league in terms of health.
“Can we get to a point where exercise referral – linked to a full package of nutritional advice and counselling – is the default option as a starting point rather than us turning immediately to medication?”
Burnham has also argued that preventative healthcare cannot be mandated from Westerminster, but must be built from bottom-up leadership in local neighbourhoods.
UK Active CEO, Cameron Saunders, said on LinkedIn that he’s cautiously optimistic about what a Burnham government might be able to deliver:
“Physical activity in primary care – Burnham has always believed exercise referral should be the default NHS offer, not an afterthought. As Mayor he pushed hard to embed it in Greater Manchester's devolved health system. As PM, he'd have the levers to reform the GP contract – specifically the Quality Outcomes Framework – to incentivise activity referrals nationally; that's a potential structural shift our sector has been waiting decades for.
“The Manchester Model, on a national scale. Burnham's blueprint – Daily Mile in schools, social prescribing, active travel infrastructure, community-based provision – is proven. He'll hopefully want to roll it out everywhere. For leisure operators, that means new commissioning frameworks, stronger referral pipelines and genuine integration with public health.
“Gyms as NHS delivery partners. He said it explicitly: gyms need to become the standardised, recognised exercise referral option that GPs can confidently prescribe to. That's not a nice-to-have – it's a policy architecture waiting to be built, delivered across public and private. Will he recognise it'a time to stop taxing prevention in order to fund cure?
“Prevention over prescription. Burnham has always been frustrated that the NHS reaches for medication before lifestyle intervention. Let's hope a Burnham government would push hard on this – moving physical activity from the margins of health policy to the centre.
“After "Two Year Kier" I'm cautiously optimistic about what a Burnham government might be able to deliver, you've got to live in hope, right?”
