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Dept of Health

Answer

Mr. Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the schemes for which his Department and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are co-funders, how much was invested by each Department; and what the overall cost of each programme was. [174064] Miss Melanie Johnson: Together with my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Sport and Tourism (Richard Caborn), I chair the cross-Government activity co- ordination team (ACT). The ACT is not a direct funding body, but has been tasked with identifying and co- ordinating existing work across Government and identifying new sources of funding for evidence based interventions and innovative pilot projects. The Department, together with Sport England (a Department for Culture, Media and Sport funded non- departmental public body) and the Countryside Agency, funds the local exercise action pilot scheme with an overall cost of £2.5million over three years. The Department is contributing £1 million and Sport England £0.7 million to this work. In addition to these cross-Government schemes the Department of Health is taking a range of actions. In April 2004, the Chief Medical Officer published his report, At least five a week, which brings together the latest evidence on physical activity and health. The Department, as a co-funder alongside the Countryside Agency and the British Heart Foundation, has contributed £27,000 to a pilot scheme that has distributed 10,000 pedometers for use in primary care. The Department and Sport England have jointly commissioned research to evaluate existing questionnaires used to determine participation in physical activity and sport. We have also commissioned work to develop an objective measure of fitness for eventual inclusion in the Health Survey for England and a short physical activity questionnaire for use in general practice. The Department published a national quality assurance framework for exercise referral systems in 2001 and we have also contributed funding of £120,000 over a three-year period to help establish the register of exercise professionals. The Government has been consulting on further proposals for how we can increase levels of activity and encourage more people to be more active through the consultation document, "Choosing Health? Choosing Activity". The responses will inform preparation of the Public Health White Paper to be published in the autumn.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

174064; 423 c800-1W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Finance Sports Departmental coordination Department of Health Exercise Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk