The Moving Healthcare Professionals Programme (MHPP) is a national programme led by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) – formerly Public Health England (PHE) – in partnership with Sport England. Its aim is to support healthcare professionals to increase their knowledge and skills, and incorporate physical activity within routine care to support quality improvement and better patient outcomes.

The MHPP builds on the evidence that shows HCPs are uniquely placed to support people to become more physically active, with the various health benefits this then brings. Healthcare interventions are identified in global guidance as a key area of influence in increasing population physical activity levels and this is reflected in national guidance frameworks.

Initiated in 2017, the programme has been designed to:

• Provide evidence-based training and support resources for healthcare professionals to improve awareness, knowledge, confidence and skills to promote physical activity to patients to prevent and manage ill health
• Test how to best embed physical activity within clinical practice so that physical activity conversations, signposting and prescribing become part of normal NHS clinical practice
• Support the management of patients with long-term conditions, including people with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer
• Help reduce long-term demand and costs on the NHS. 

A 3-year evaluation has been led by the National Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine in Sheffield, in collaboration with Ipsos and the National Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine (East Midlands) in Loughborough. The Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre is home of, and research hub for the National Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine in Sheffield.  Academics from the AWRC have contributed to this work and it builds on our growing knowledge of ‘what works’ in supporting people with health conditions to be physically active.

Phase One

Phase one began in 2017 and was completed in 2019. You can access the reports and outputs from phase one below.

Phase Two

Phase two began in 2019 and was completed in 2022. 

• MHPP Physical Activity Clinical Champions Report (PDF, 934.8KB)
• MHPP Moving Medicine Report (PDF, 720KB) 
• MHPP E-Learning Report  (PDF, 935.7KB)
• MHPP E-Advice Report  (PDF, 734.5KB)
• MHPP Active Hospitals Report (PDF, 1.6MB)
• MHPP Activating NHS Systems Report (PDF, 805.9KB)
• MHPP Activating NHS Systems Appendix (PDF, 16.2MB)

For more information on the evaluation please contact NCSEM@shu.ac.uk

Supporting Documentation and Links

Phase one evaluation reports

• Evaluation of the Public Health England and Sport England Funded Physical Activity Clinical Advice Pad Pilot in Primary Care
• Evaluation of the Clinical Champions' Physical Activity Training Programme
• Evaluation of the Public Health England and Sport England Funded Sport and Exercise Medicine Pilot in Secondary Care

Phase one evaluation peer-reviewed publications

• The Active Hospital pilot: A qualitative study exploring the implementation of a Trust-wide Sport and Exercise Medicine-led physical activity intervention
• Mixed Methods Process Evaluation of a National Peer-Led Training Program to Increase Brief Advice on Physical Activity Given By Health Care Professionals
• Impact of a National Peer-Led Training Program to Increase Brief Physical Activity Advice Given to Patients by Health Care Professionals

Additional information 

• Moving healthcare professionals – a whole system approach to embed physical activity in clinical practice