Places for People Leisure has partnered with exercise referral software specialist ReferAll to deliver the programming across its group.
The award-winning, not-for-dividend leisure management operator is expanding and developing its health offering by switching from paper-based systems to ReferAll’s software. This will be rolled out across its estate over the next twelve to eighteen months.
Sarah Leonie, Head of Fitness at Places for People Leisure, explained: “We are very aware that a key weakness for the leisure industry is the lack of data. Our involvement with ukactive has shown the need for a robust health offering that can deliver key measurable and meaningful outcomes. One of the biggest drivers for change is improving the link and gaining credibility within the medical community.
“ReferAll know the language to use when speaking to GPs and practice managers. This has not only helped us with direct contact but has also opened doors.”
Places for People is currently using ReferAll in five sites to support a number of programmes including centres in Mid Sussex, where the GP Referral scheme includes aqua, cancer and cardiac rehabilitation, as well as a brand new scheme in Gosport. At Ferndown Leisure Centre the software is supporting multiple health programmes for cardiac, cancer, stroke and aqua rehabilitation, as well as falls prevention, which all sit under the exercise referral umbrella.
Leonie said: “It is crucial for us to show sustainability within the health and fitness sector. We need to be able to pull out localised health information and easily access this data to create transparency around performance and impact between the partners involved. ReferAll’s system helps us prove how successful programmes are and we hope to use this data to help secure funding in the future, something we were unable to do using our paper-based system as extracting data was simply too time consuming.
Leonie concluded: “ReferAll’s system is versatile and adaptable and, being NICE compliant, they were able to guide us in terms of appropriate data collection for questionnaires in our schemes. By visiting our sites and being really hands-on, they were also able to create and integrate bespoke pathways into our system. That is the strength of ReferAll’s software solution: it is the same platform just new pathways.”