Evaluation of the Public Health England and Sport England Funded Physical Activity Clinical Advice Pad Pilot in Primary Care
In 2014 Public Health England (PHE) launched the national physical activity (PA) framework ‘Everybody Active, Everyday’. The framework included a key domain for action called ‘Moving Professionals’. The Moving Professionals Programme aimed to build expertise and leadership across key professional sectors and to raise awareness and understanding of the health benefits of PA among professionals and the wider public. The Moving Professionals Programme comprised a number of innovative work packages that are described elsewhere (See Brannan et al., 2019). The Physical Activity Clinical Advice Pad (PACAP) pilot was one element of the Moving Professionals Programme, and aimed to; increase the number of primary healthcare professionals (HCPs) in England who integrate brief advice on PA into their routine clinical practice.The PACAP provides advice about the amount and type of PA required to improve health and was designed to look like a prescription pad to aid compliance with the advice provided. It also provides tips on different ways to become more active and signposts users to the PHE Active 10 app and One You website. The purpose of the PACAP was to prompt and facilitate conversations about PA between HCPs and patients.In 2017, PHE and Sport England invited expressions of interest (EoIs) from Local Authority (LA) and Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) partnerships across England to engage in the pilot. Twenty-five applications were returned and ten partnerships were invited to take part in the PACAP pilot.As part of the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine (NCSEM) network, academics at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) were commissioned to conduct an independent evaluation of the PACAP pilot. The NCSEM were not responsible for the implementation or delivery of the PACAP pilot. The evaluation adopted a mixed methods approach to explore the acceptability of the PACAP pilot. Data was collected from patients and HCPs using surveys, telephone interviews, focus groups and audits between April 2018 and February 2019. This report details the evaluation findings, provides recommendation for future iterations of the project and provides implications for scaling the PACAP across additional localities in England.