Website of the Department of Health

DH statement on Exercise Referral

This statement clarifies the position with respect to local commissioning of exercise referral schemes in England.

The Department of Health urges commissioners, practitioners and policy makers to continue to provide high quality exercise referral schemes for their local population where these address:

a)     The medical management of conditions, e,g, type 2 diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis.

b)     Approaches specific to preventing or improving individual health conditions (e.g. falls prevention), which fall outside the overarching advice to achieve 30 minutes moderate activity on at least 5 days a week.

Schemes should be commissioned and managed in accordance with the National Quality Assurance Framework for exercise referral in England.

Exercise referral schemes solely for the purpose of promoting physical activity (i.e. where there is no underlying medical condition or risk) should only be commissioned or endorsed by commissioners, practitioners and policy makers when they are part of a properly designed and controlled research study to determine effectiveness.

• Download DH statement on Exercise Referral (PDF, 37K)