Get active, feel good

Summer 2012

‘Get Active, Feel Good’ is a new physical activity project funded by Macmillan in Shropshire.

Members of the Shropshire and Mid-Wales Cancer Patients Forum raised the need for a physical activity plan for people with cancer after seeing the media coverage generated by Macmillan’s Move More| campaign last year.

Using the Department of Health’s Let’s Get Moving| guidance [PDF, 2.9Mb], a ‘Get Active, Feel Good’ adviser will provide individual exercise assessments and motivational interview-based interventions to people with cancer who may benefit from increased physical activity. The adviser will help build the person’s readiness and confidence, explore concerns and options, and will develop a sustainable, personal exercise plan.

The project will also include motivational interviewing training for clinical nurse specialists (CNSs) and therapists. This will help them encourage people with cancer to recognise their own motivations for getting active and promote autonomy of decision making. CNSs will refer appropriate patients to the ‘Get Active, Feel Good’ adviser.

The final area for development will be to train community exercise instructors to deliver safe and effective exercise and cancer rehabilitation through existing ‘exercise on referral’ schemes, so that individual exercise programmes can be provided for people with specific clinical needs.

More Information

Email Miranda Ashwell|, Programme Lead for Physical Activity, Public Health, Shropshire PCT.