This is achieved by facilitating big impact partnerships, championing innovation, providing high quality services to our members, campaigning, providing research and sharing insights. ukactive exists to serve any organisation with a role to play in, or benefit to be gained from getting more people, more active, more often. We will provide a supportive, professional and innovative platform for our partners to succeed in achieving their goals.

ukactive's membership, which stands at over 3,000 members, includes operators of fitness facilities of all sizes, as well as local authority leisure centres, leisure trusts, outdoor fitness providers, trainers, sports providers, education and training providers, lifestyle companies, equipment suppliers and charities.

About the evaluation

View the full impact evaluation

Level on Standards: Level 2 - they capture data that shows positive change, but they cannot confirm you caused this.

Aim: The aim of the evaluation was to understand the effect of increased social action through group MI sessions (LGMSA) on beneficiaries’ physical activity levels against the standard Let’s Get Moving (LGM) programme.

Evaluator: ukactive Research Institute

Key findings:

• Time spent participating in sport increased by 542.9% over 12 weeks with an additional increase in vigorous intensity physical activity (182.2%) and total physical activity (58.2%).
• Sport demonstrated the highest percentage increase from baseline to 12 weeks with an increase of 542.9%
• There were no positive statistically significant effects on physical activity levels between LGMSA and LGM at 12-week follow-up – research indicates that any negative effects were likely due to seasonal effects

Methodology:

Method: ukactive appear to use an informally matched comparison group design, comparing patients at three surgeries receiving LGMSA with one surgery receiving the standard LGM. It is therefore a high-intensity intervention versus low-intensity intervention comparison. Surgeries were randomly allocated. Baseline data was compared with the two follow-up sessions (pre-/post- analysis).

ukactive used the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) as their key measurement tool, which covers vigorous and moderate intensity physical activity, walking and total physical activity. The evaluation also includes some simple qualitative data – case studies and testimonials, which provide a positive impression of the programme.

Participants: The evaluation recruited 435 patients across the 4 surgeries, of which 414 provided baseline data, 173 provided 12-week follow-up data, and 92 provided 6-month follow-up data.

Why this Level: With support from Nesta, ukactive have delivered an evaluation that suggests a positive change over time for the people that it supports, using some externally validated, appropriate tools. The report is clearly written, with some good awareness and transparency on the challenges and limitations of the evaluation. ukactive have adequately explained their negative impact at the 6 month follow-up, with statistical testing providing TSIP with some confidence that, were the retention rates to have been higher or an imputed intention to treat analysis been carried out, the intervention still would have had a weakened positive effect.

About the evidence journey

Progress: LGM has since been rolled out across Essex and has completed the first phase (October 2016). LGM Essex has seen improvements from Let’s Get Moving Augmented with a Social Action Intervention, notably an increase in 12 week retention which is currently at 52%, an increase of over 10%. Furthermore there have been statistically significant increases in all physical activity intensities at 12 weeks and 6 months with 73% of participants increasing their physical activity levels at 12 weeks.

Lessons learned: LGM continually learns from and improves the service provided to the recruited participants. Recent learnings included ensuring the recruited surgeries use the appropriate data collection software for reporting and evaluation purposes. Additionally, the local population must be understood when promoting the group sessions ensuring high group attendance.

Next steps: LGM is currently in the second of three phases within Essex which includes roll out across additional surgeries as well as a pilot of accelerometer data collection. In the future ukactive is looking to adapt LGM for populations with specific medical conditions.