Parents are being encouraged to take up an activity such as a 5k run rather than sit around while their children play sport.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay pushed the idea as the Government seeks to dramatically increase prevention of obesity, heart and other conditions in the battle against ill-health as part of plans to make the crisis-hit NHS “sustainable” in the long term.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Standard to mark the 75th anniversary of the NHS, he also:
- Defended the use of health workers from overseas in the care sector in the face of calls from other Tory MPs to scrap a temporary visa scheme for these individuals.
- Denied healthcare in London was being ‘levelled-down’ as some doctor child psychiatry training posts are being moved out of the capital.
- Did not back his predecessor Sajid Javid’s call for a Royal Commission into the future of the NHS and his argument that it is “unsustainable” in its current form.
- Stressed that NHS chiefs would be “following the data” in the capital and other parts of Britain to identify and tackle health inequalities, including among ethnic minorities.
On a visit to the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, Mr Barclay took part in a game for the partially-sighted, wearing special glasses, and learned about the work of the LTA-funded Sport in Mind charity.
Speaking about encouraging people into sport, he said: “The key thing is how we empower people and make it easier for them to be active and to think about their wider well-being.
“A good illustration, chatting with one of my constituents recently was he was dropping his daughter off at a dance class.
“Whereas in the past, he would have waited in the car, listening to the radio perhaps reading the newspaper, and he had signed up to Parkrun.
“Through signing up to Parkrun, he was telling me he’d lost some weight and felt much better in terms of his own health by using that time. So the opportunities to think about how do we use our public spaces...how do we make it easier for people to take part in activity, which are the hard to reach groups that may find that hardest and how we’re reaching out to those.”
Pressed if he would encourage such an approach as his constituent’s, he added: “Yeah, I think the more we can focus on prevention, and people’s well-being, but that doesn’t have to be sports. It may be singing in a choir. It may be taking the dog for a walk.
“People will want to get involved in health and well-being in different ways. But I think the opportunity to expand those programmes rather than spend as much as we do on medication is exactly the direction of travel.”
Lancastrian Mr Barclay, 51, has sport in the blood, with his father having coached junior rugby for 39 years, and “growing up around the sports club as one of three brothers” and playing the game.
As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he funded a number of programmes about building the evidence base for social prescribing of sport, including with the LTA, and other activities to improve people’s well-being, often their mental health.
But ministers have come under fire over plans to move 23 posts to train doctors in child psychiatry out of the capital by 2030/31, sparking accusations of “levelling-down” London.
Mr Barclay insisted: “We are extremely focused on supporting mental health in London.
“First overall we are putting more funding into mental health, £2.3 billion more than four years ago.”
He added: “ Within London, there was a specific issue which is it had around a third of the places which was disproportionate to the rest of the country. So it’s right that we better reflect needs across the country.”
He also highlighted a recent announcement of £96 million for 93 healthcare research schemes, with “one of the biggest beneficiaries” being Great Ormond Street Hospital getting £3.5 million for innovative work which would not only benefit children with rare conditions but would be “then taken through into adult healthcare as well”.
Around 25 Right-wing Tory MPs from the 2017 and 2019 intake, including deputy chairman Lee Anderson, are calling on ministers to close a temporary visa scheme for care workers under the shortage occupation list, arguing that these jobs could be filled by people already in the UK.
But Mr Barclay rejected the idea while also highlighting attempts to train more people in the UK so the number of these posts filled by workers from overseas drops from one in four to one in ten over the longer term.
He said: “International recruitment has always been part of the NHS since 1948. It’s always been part of our social care offer, and that will continue but we do need to boost our domestic supply and that is what the expansion of the workforce plan is doing.”
Asked if the NHS was safe in Tory hands given Mr Javid’s comments, he said: “Well, for more years of the NHS’s existence, it’s been under Conservative governments than it has under Labour governments.
“What is fundamental to the NHS is that it is free at the point of access. That is absolutely core to the way the NHS is viewed and that is what we’re absolutely committed to across government.
“We are also committed to the long term and that can be seen in the biggest every investment in the NHS estate over £20 billion in our new hospitals programme and also this week, the historic moment of the first ever long term workforce plan, the biggest expansion in the NHS workforce training in its history, which is £2.4 billion over five years and underscores our commitment to making sure the NHS is sustainable in the long term.
“And in doing so, will be there for your family and mine for many years to come.”
