Exercise on Referral

GP's in South Wales are already referring people onto exercise programmes. We thought knowing more about this process might help us with setting up Arts on referral schemes. Kate Verity has done the research:

Exercise Referrals

The exercise referrals scheme categorises people into ‘levels’. In Caerphilly there is a referral system set up for levels 3 and 4.

Level 3- people are referred by GP due to problems with physical fitness e.g. Risk Factors for Heart Disease

Level 4- GPs refer people with ongoing health conditions such as stroke rehabilitation, falls, back care, pulmonary/ cardiac disease, mental health issues.

Patients are referred for up to 3 x 16-week blocks of sessions, at £2 a session or £36 for the block.

Blocks are subsidised through Welsh Government, via Public Health, to pay for the scheme. This is known as the National Exercise Referral Scheme (NERS)

This is a rolling programme of activities with patients being referred as and when they need it. Patients can be any age from 17+ but most tend to be within the 40-50 year age group.

We have been given the contacts of several Communities First officers and NERS coordinators, and we are awaiting another meeting to discuss how we could feed into their system with arts activities. Craig has asked if we can send him a newsletter of our arts activities then he will pass these on to the service users as part of their leaving pack when they finish their block of activities.

Craig recommended finding out about Neighbourhood Care Networks in order to get the information out to GPs and surgeries. These meetings take place in community clusters- again we’re awaiting more information about when and how to get invited to one of these.

GPs/ nurses and other health professionals in surgeries are given an exercise referral pack with information about the scheme which encourages them to signpost people on. Registered healthcare professionals are able to refer people through an online portal.

Caerphilly’s Leisure services use a smart card system that allows them to track people’s payments and the sessions they use, so people with exercise referrals are automatically registered on this system and their 16 week block of sessions is recorded.

Meanwhile the Health Development Team have said the key is to get a GP or health professional such as a Surgery Manager to champion arts on referrals- once one place starts using it with success then others will want to join up. The ongoing issue is always measuring the success of such a scheme, as with exercise referrals it is possible to measure things such as blood pressure and weight, whereas outcomes from arts activities tend to be less tangible.