The Joint Consultative Forum has released the latest standards for Exercise Referral, which will now enter a 10-week consultation process.

Following the consultation period, the Joint Consultative Forum will consider responses to the consultation in September and publish the standards in late 2011/early 2012.

The new standards build on the work of the 2001 National Quality Assurance Framework for Exercise Referral systems and the more recent British Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity and Health Exercise Referral Toolkit.

The standards set out the minimum requirements for risk stratification of patients; the assessment and measurement of patients' physical activity and quality of life; and the communication between patient, exercise referral instructors, and doctors.

Guidance also includes benchmarks for record keeping, liability and medico-legal considerations as well as reporting to commissioners.

The Fitness Industry Association's (FIA) chief medical officer, Dr. John Searle, said the standards aim to clear the way for exercise referrals to become more widely used by medical professionals.

He said: "The evidence base for exercise in the prevention and management of disease is widely acknowledged however there is variable practice and evaluation of exercise referral services, which has prevented the wider uptake of exercise in primary care.

"It is our hope that the Standards will provide a benchmark which will, define the role of exercise referral schemes, assist the evaluation of exercise referral services, and most of all improve the quality of care for patients."

The Joint Consultative Forum was set up last year (2010) in partnership by the FIA and a number of Royal Medical Colleges and faculties to better use exercise in both preventing ill-health and treating disease in primary care.

For a copy of the Standards for Exercise Referral visit www.fia.org.uk . The consultation will close at 5pm on Friday August 19 2011, to answer the consultation visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JCFexercisereferral