One year after it was added for the treatment of hypertension, physical activity is set to be dropped from the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) in April.

The QOF is a voluntary tool used by GPs to reward them for patient care. It also looks like a dying tool: after being beefed up last year, it is being slimmed down by 40 per cent this year, after GPs complained of being governed by tickboxes.

In return for a drastically reduced QOF, new payment arrangements and more freedom, GPs have committed to longer opening hours and other service enhancements.

According to ukactive, the uptake of physical activity on the QOF was disappointingly low. “It was valued at a level that was deemed to be more hassle than it was worth financially and it was not seen by GPs as a priority area of focus. For these reasons it was dropped,” says Stephen Wilson, public affairs director at ukactive.

In the light of this news, ukactive is keeping up the pressure on the government to encourage the health care sector to build more links with the fitness sector and for exercise to be used as medicine.

In its recent report, Turning the tide, ukactive has recommended that the government should get to the root of the problem and ensure health care professionals receive comprehensive training on the specific physical, mental and social risks of physical inactivity. This would provide the knowledge needed for health professionals to clearly see the benefits of physical activity.

It is also working with key partners, such as Public Health England, to raise awareness of the standalone health benefits of physical activity and the negative impact of being inactive.

For further discussion on the QOF and to read about what the experts think need to be done to get exercise reinstated, or put exercise on the radar of GPs, see the April issue of Health Club Management.

Stephen Wilson gives his views, along with the NICE chair of the QOF advisory committee, Professor Colin Hunter, London GP, Dr Telesilla Wardle, fitness industry consultant, Dean Hodgkin in the Everyone’s Talking About feature.