Leisure Connection hosts the Government health initiatives launch

Leisure Connection recently hosted the year’s biggest government announcements about sport and physical activity at their flagship Willesden Sports Centre. The great and the good from Parliament, the leisure and sport industry and other VIPs all attended a briefing by Andy Burnham MP, the Secretary of State for Health who set out the government’s vision for a fitter England.

In his speech, the Health Secretary (far left) called on the NHS to make the promotion of active lifestyles “core business and not a peripheral concern”. Health professionals should see improving activity rates and getting their patients moving as central to their work.

The Health Secretary also gave an update on up and coming plans for Change4Life – the lifestyle revolution that is helping families to eat well, move more and live longer. National campaigns include;

• A Dance Champions Group featuring stars of Strictly Come Dancing to boost participation in dance in the run up to 2012.
• Around 250 councils have already signed up to the Free Swimming programme ‘swim4life’, the Department is now reopening the bidding rounds, with another £1 million pounds on offer for councils who didn’t sign up in the first place.
• Fresh efforts to build on Natural England’s Walking for Health campaign to make 200,000 more people active by 2012 through Walking for Health under the Walk4Life brand.
• In line with Bike4Life, Sky, the entertainment and communications company, working with British Cycling, has organised a summer series of Skyride mass-participation cycling events across five major cities, plus hundreds of local led rides, to encourage all ages and abilities to get back on their bikes. Sky’s target is to inspire a million more people to ride in the next five years.