Event Welcomes NICE Guidance on Physical Activity and the Environment

31/01/2008

Community leaders and senior health officials were in Gloucester this week for an event in support of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence’s (NICE) new guidance on physical activity and the environment (Natural and Built).

The special event at the Anglo Asian Cultural Centre in Barton Street, Gloucester brought together national and local agencies, members of the public and service users to discuss how the environment can be used to better support people to be more active and healthy.

The NICE guidance offers the first national, evidence based recommendations on how to improve the environment to encourage and support opportunities for physical activity.

Bren McInerney, a member of NICE’s Programme Guidance Development Group and Health Involvement Lead at the Barton and Tredworth Community Trust Centre in Gloucester, and the organiser of the event, said:

“This event demonstrated that supporting people to be healthy and improving the physical environment is a shared responsibility. No one agency can make lasting improvements on their own.”

“I am very pleased that NICE have responded positively to the invite to visit Gloucestershire as part of the launch of this guidance and to join a wide variety of local agencies who have such an important contribution to make in leading developments.”

The guidance contains seven main recommendations covering strategies, policies and plans, transport and planning, public open spaces (including paths and rights of way), and public buildings.

Key actions include involving local communities in planning and ensuring that planning applications for new developments always prioritise the need for people to be physically active as a routine part of daily life.

Other actions include planning and providing a comprehensive network of routes for walking and cycling, ensuring public open spaces and public paths can be reached on foot, by bicycle and other modes of transport involving physical activity and ensuring building design and refurbishment encourages physical activity e.g. positioning of staircases so people are encouraged to use them.

Mike Kelly, Public Health Excellence Centre Director at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said:

“The guidance is about making it easier for people to be physically active. It’s designed to support local agencies with responsibility for the built or natural environments to work in partnership with local communities to encourage and support physical activity.”

“We were pleased to be in Gloucestershire to promote the guidance, to share good practice and to listen to the experiences of communities in both urban and rural areas.”

Duncan Jordan, Group Director for the Environment at Gloucestershire County Council said:

“It is really exciting that we have national guidelines that allow us to look outside the box and work across the environment and health arena. It is up to those responsible for planning and designing within our communities to make sure we provide an infrastructure that allows people to be physically active and healthy.”

Chief Executive of Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust, Jan Stubbings said:

“A lot of hard work has gone in to organising today’s event and it has proved an excellent forum to further develop our partnership approach to promoting physical activity in Gloucestershire. “

Further Information

Key speakers and seminar facilitators at the event included:

• Dame Janet Trotter, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire
• Lady Mavis Dunrossill, Chair of Gloucestershire County Council
• Bren McInerney, member of NICE’s Programme Guidance Development Group and Health Involvement Lead at the Barton and Tredworth Community Trust Centre
• David Drew MP, Vice Chair of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee
• Mike Kelly, Public Health Excellence Centre Director at NICE
• Joseph Blackwood, Barton and Tredworth Community Trust Centre
• Bill Wragge, Cotswold District Council
• Duncan Jordan, Group Director of Gloucestershire County Council
• Hazel Braund, Director of Communication, Performance and Planning, Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust
• David Stone from Natural England
• Jan Baynham, Chair of the Forest of Dean Health Forum
• Ruth FitzJohn, Chair of Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust.
  
  

For further information, please contact event organiser, Bren McInerney on 01452 544933.
The NICE guidance, ‘Physical activity and environment,’ is available at www.nice.org.uk.