photo: Lincs Inspire
As a charitable trust, we exist for people of all ages and abilities – with and without health conditions. Driven by customer need, we work with the health sector to support people’s health and to embed services in our leisure centres. As such, we do a lot of work to support the rehabilitation of stroke survivors.
Our Active Forever referral scheme is a collaboration between the leisure and healthcare sectors and offers flexible, tailored programmes to suit clients at every stage of their rehabilitation journey.
The 12-week scheme includes access to Innerva’s power-assisted equipment in our Wellness Hub at Grimsby Health and Wellbeing Centre, as well as gym classes, swimming and more.
When working with health professionals, we’ve found sometimes you have to give a little to get something back. For example, we offer free studio space to allow specialist neurological nurses to run their chair-based rehabilitation programme.
Thanks to the relationship and trust we’ve built with the team, 90 per cent of their clients transfer into our Wellness Hub after completing the programme.
We continually upskill our staff to give them the knowledge and confidence to engage with people with a range of health conditions, including stroke survivors.
Our health partners often deliver the training, which gives them the confidence we can deliver specialist services and support their work.
We know our programmes positively impact people’s lives and help reduce referral rates for the NHS and primary care services. For example, we’ve been supporting the recovery of the former professional snooker player, Mike Hallett, after he suffered a stroke.
Ranked world number six in the late 80s and early 90s, Mike was referred by his GP to the Active Forever scheme and has been using our Wellness Hub to rebuild his strength and coordination.
He’s made great progress and aims to get fit enough to qualify for the 2024 World Seniors Snooker Championship.
Mike Hallett is one of the many success stories which show that the health and fitness sector has the potential to help achieve the latest NICE guidelines. But it takes time to build trust and confidence with the health sector; it’s taken us 10 years to get our work commissioned by health partners.
We offer free studio space to allow specialist neurological nurses to run their chair-based rehabilitation programme
We’re definitely part of the solution, but we’re just one step in a customer’s rehabilitation journey. It’s worth noting that the cost of accessing these services can be a barrier and while we do our best to unlock grant funding to support our work with stroke survivors and others, there’s little to no mainstream funding to help those from low income households.
Cost often prevents people from continuing with our services after they’ve completed the free Active Forever programme.
For all the benefits they offer and their potential to help lower the burden on the NHS, programmes like these shouldn’t be cost-prohibitive and they urgently need more government funding in order to achieve their potential.
In an ageing society where more people are living longer in ill-health, we believe the government should fund community health initiatives such as Active Forever which can profoundly impact the lives of local people.
It’s taken us 10 years to get our work commissioned by health partners