Whether you're an organisation looking to create or enhance an exercise referral scheme, a social prescriber or part of the team on the ground running a programme, ReferAll understands the challenges of successful implementation.
Exercise referral providers have one overarching aim: to help get clients active and improve their overall health. Here are ReferAll’s tips for streamlining the path to success and ensuring your exercise referral scheme is effectively helping the people you most want to reach.
#1 Refine your referral criteria
Start by establishing clear criteria for who’s eligible for your exercise referral scheme. Do they need to have specific health conditions, such as heart disease or obesity? Is being physically inactive part of your inclusion criteria?
#2 Talk the talk
Attracting people to your scheme relies on good communication with referring healthcare professionals. Make good connections between your exercise professionals and local referring healthcare professionals to ensure referrals are made efficiently and effectively.
#3 Assess your assessments
A clear, comprehensive client assessment should consider the person's physical activity level, health status, readiness to change, mental wellbeing and health goals. A clear kick-off assessment will help your exercise professionals tailor the programme to meet each person's individual needs.
#4 Mix it up
Ensure your scheme offers a range of exercise options to suit different preferences, fitness levels and health conditions. Can you include group exercise classes, personal training sessions, outdoor activities or home-based exercises? As long as your programming is safe and effective for people with health conditions, the more variety you can include, the better.
It helps to offer tailored programmes for specific populations, such as older adults, people with disabilities or groups for people with specific health conditions to facilitate peer support.
#5 Spur them on
Offering incentives for participation, such as discounts on gym/swim/class membership, access to special events, or a free cuppa in your café after class, can encourage people to stick with your scheme.
#6 Share the load
Collaborate with other organisations, such as local community groups or charities, to provide additional support and resources as well as alternative activity offerings. Joining forces with established groups will help you to foster a supportive and welcoming environment where participants feel comfortable taking part.
#7 Check up and check in
Regular monitoring and follow-ups by your team are key to success. Contact from your team will help ensure participants are getting the most from your scheme and highlight individuals at risk of dropping out. These check-ins can be face-to-face or online – all ongoing support helps ensure people continue to be active and make progress towards their health goals.
ReferAll’s reporting and tasks management tools are every team member’s friend, helping them to keep track of scheme participants, their attendance and if they’ve been contacted.
#8 Get techie
Use technology to support delivery. ReferAll’s online scheme management software supports your team in the running of your exercise referral scheme. ReferAll does the hard work so your teams can forget about admin and focus on the business of helping people to achieve their goals.
#9 Take a step back
Monitor and evaluate your schemes to assess their effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. ReferAll’s tried and tested Reporting Solution helps managers view their service from the outside in, to see what’s working and where changes could be made.
#10 Focus on feedback
Ask participants and healthcare professionals involved in your scheme to review it regularly, so you can improve based on feedback. This will help to ensure that the scheme is meeting the needs of the people it serves and delivering the best possible outcomes.
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