Pivot to Active Wellbeing

What is Pivot to Active Wellbeing 

In the summer of 2020, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, senior leaders in Greater Manchester came together to discuss the future of public leisure services with two key aims:

• To sustain the public sector leisure infrastructure through the pandemic and beyond.
• To maximise the future contribution of the leisure providers to the population health picture in Greater Manchester as we seek to Build Back Fairer.

Two years later, in December 2022, Sport England published the ‘Future of Public Sector Leisure’ report which began to shift the language and thinking around the value and contribution of public sector leisure to wider health and economic outcomes.

Pivot to Active Wellbeing is GM’s contribution to that report and has been a collective approach of partners from across Greater Manchester (GM), exploring how leisure, fitness and pool services and place communities at the heart of their offer and better support the integrated health care system in tackling health and wellbeing inequalities.

This cross sector collaborative approach includes the ten GM local authorities, GM Active, GM Moving, Sport England and the twelve Greater Manchester leisure operators. It also draws on wider expert support from University of Keele & University of Salford, SLC consultancy, and Future Fit.

This programme of work has three interconnected pillars;

Pillar 1: Transforming public sector leisure services

Explore how GM providers, commissioners and facilities can shift from fitness to wellness, be more sustainable and play a more purposeful role in active wellbeing.
This pillar included exploring opportunities around how to increase collaboration and knowledge sharing across borders and services. This manifested in creation series of communities of learning that explored challenges and opportunities commissioners and strategic leads.

This work also encompassed the GM wide Prehab for Cancer service deep dive to pull out key learnings, exploring how the service can expand and be replicated in other areas.

Pillar 3: An Active Academic Partnership

Developed and led by the University of Salford & then University of Keele, this partnership puts academic knowledge into action. They are exploring current and future opportunities of collaboration between leisure and health within GM to support those with long term health conditions.