Agenda item

Members of the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) will receive a report which provides an update on the work to develop a physical activity and sport strategy for York.  The report also contains a request of endorsement from the board.

George Cull and Damien Smith from the leadership team at North Yorkshire Sport will both be in attendance to present the report.

Members of the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWBB) received a report which provided an update on the work to develop a physical activity and sport strategy for York.  The report also contained a request of endorsement from the board.

George Cull and Damien Smith from the leadership team at North Yorkshire Sport were both in attendance to present the report.  They also provided a presentation (which can be found at item 4 of this agenda).

They apologised for the two typos on the report: (i) page 24 Annex 1 ‘in equalities’ should read ‘inequalities’ and (ii) page 28 last bullet point ‘casual’ instead of ‘causal’. 

The Physical Activity and Sports Strategy for York had arisen due to the Health and Wellbeing Annual Report for 2018/19 which had outlined Public Health’s ambition to develop a physical activity strategy.  This resulted in a partnership arrangement with City of York Council (CYC) and North Yorkshire Sport (NYS), who were commissioned to lead the development of a Physical Activity and Sport Strategy for the city.

They outlined the aims of their strategy which included: a strong focus on physical activity as well as supporting core sporting markets; using physical activity and sport to support wider outcomes; connecting and linking with existing strategies within the city and nationally; support existing asset based approaches with communities and galvanising partners to work more effectively with each other, as well as identifying new work areas.

The following information was provided in response to questions from the HWBB members:

·        The strategy aims to run from 2020 – 2030 but was intended to be ongoing for as long as funding was available.

·        The current participation in physical activity figures provided in their presentation had indicated that those from lower socio economic and those with physical disability were doing less exercise. To address this, they spoke about supporting individuals to build confidence and undertaking awareness raising so that people were informed of low cost or free activities that they could access.

·        In response to a board member’s concern that some of the activities listed such as Man v Football league were focused on physical activity which may set people up for disappointment in that physical activity alone would not help someone achieve a healthy weight, they explained that participants were provided with nutritional support and behaviour-change tools and that participants had been successful in achieving weight loss.

·        On campaigns such as “This Girl Can” it was noted that many women would not describe themselves as a girl. This was something that was not in their remit to change as their role was to amplify existing campaigns. 

·        In relation to the funding strategy, referral model and making the existing system work better, they explained that they were not yet at that stage of detail.

·        They considered that funding was available to access provided that there was a clear picture of services and assets available and that they could demonstrate where there was a need for services.

Board members were pleased to note the link between exercise and mental health and the aim to connect and link with existing programmes and promote assets within the community and to reduce inequality.

Resolved

That the Health and Wellbeing Board:

             i.       Endorse the strategy and agree the stated ambition and thematic structure.

            ii.       Approve the initial headline actions and support the development of more detailed action plans around each theme.

          iii.      Requested a progress report on the strategy once it had been further developed.