GM CLAHRC Research echoed in NICE guidelines

Recent guidance published by NICE suggests that increased physical activity should be encouraged throughout local communities. The GM CLAHRC’s work on the PLANS study, conducted by the People with Long Term Conditions (Patients) Research Theme, supports these recommendations as it focuses on enabling patients with long term vascular conditions to take part in more community based physical activities such as walking and cycling. NICE suggest that regular physical activity is crucial to achieving and maintaining a healthy lifestyle especially for patients with long term vascular diseases. Increasing physical activities can help to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes by up to 50%  and is also important for good mental health. They are now encouraging organisations and institutions such as schools, work places and local authorities to promote more opportunities for people to take part in physical activity. Dr Christian Blickem, Research Associate said: “The PLANS study (Patient-Led Assessment for Network Support) is part of an on-going programme of work and has been a major focus of the patients theme in the Centre for Primary Care. As part of the study, we have developed a tool to link primary care patients to existing local community and voluntary organisations. We are currently trialling this tool as part of a self-management support package for people with Chronic Kidney Disease within the BRIGHT randomised controlled trial across Greater Manchester. We are also exploring the links between voluntary and community groups with health services to identify ways these links can be strengthened in the future.”

Date Published: 12/12/2012