In order to provide clarity and a deeper understanding on how the sport and physical activity workforce is continuing to collaborate and align with the health and social care sector, CIMSPA have published their ‘Position Statement on Health’.
With the NHS continuing to tackle mounting financial pressures and faced with rising demand, the sector has never been better-placed to support with these challenges and play an even more pivotal role in improving the physical and mental health and wellbeing of the population.
In the document, CIMSPA sets out their intentions to further support the workforce in delivering in a health landscape and how through promotion, prescription and programming, they aim to steer a change in the perception of what physical activity means to health practitioners.
Speaking about the newly-published statement, Colin Huffen – Associate Director for Standards and Regulation at CIMSPA, said:
“The position statement lays out what we feel the workforce’s remit is in terms of collaboration with the health sector and medical professionals, where we believe the workforce currently stands, and our future direction of travel when it comes to the prescription of exercise.
“This also follows on from the publication of our strategy, last year, in which we stated that there is a greater need for recognition of sport and physical activity professionals, particularly within healthcare sector, and the imminent introduction of professional status for our workforce will be a huge step forward for this.
“The document also includes four key objectives that we have identified in order to ensure that we’re doing all we can to align our working practices to steer a change in perceptions, and our work will be regularly monitored for relevance and accountability to ensure that we’re staying on track.”
The four key objectives cover how CIMSPA can continue to…
- Develop and provide high quality standards for training and development
- Further explore how they can support the workforce training of the healthcare sector
- Develop a strong supply chain of workers who are promoting their relevant skills and qualifications in relation to health and ensuring that healthcare staff can confidently signpost and refer patients to professionals in their area
- Ensure that the CIMSPA workforce development team and partners continue to link local skills work to local health needs and priorities
CIMSPA’s strategy ‘Releasing the Power of our Profession’ can be downloaded here.
