Cancer Care: Making Physical Activity 'Business As Usual'

The need for physical activity in cancer care

In February 2020, I was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to explore how we can make physical activity ‘business as usual’ within cancer care. The Fellowship was an experience of a lifetime, allowing me to travel to the USA and Canada to learn from world leading experts.

My travels were delayed due to the Covid 19 pandemic, however, in 2023 I was able to complete my Fellowship in full. It was worth the wait!

There is strong evidence that physical activity is highly beneficial for people living with and beyond cancer. Research has shown it can reduce side effects and improve quality of life at all stages of cancer treatment. There is also evidence physical activity can reduce reoccurrence and improve survival rates in some cancers. Despite the evidence, physical activity is not routinely available as part of cancer care in the UK.

Comparing healthcare cultures

During my Fellowship, I explored how a culture where physical activity is embedded within cancer care has been achieved in North America. I met with a range of renowned researchers and visited innovative exercise oncology services. The quality of support delivered to people with cancer and the progress made was inspiring.

Before travelling, I hypothesised that the USA's and UK's differing healthcare models would influence the availability of funding and thus the culture of embedding physical activity into clinical care. However, I learnt that how programmes are funded had very little impact on their success, and the extent to which physical activity was normalised by the design of clinical environments and processes was far more influential. I found that a range of cultural and contextual differences created this normalising effect.

A key finding was how programmes in the USA deliver ‘exercise as medicine’ in a more clinically prescriptive way compared to the UK’s more generalised promotion of physical activity guidelines. Highly successful programmes had implemented systematic and evidence-based processes to utilise exercise and clinical professionals appropriately and allow scalability.

Recommendations for change

To help create change in the UK, my report includes recommendations for how physical activity can be normalised by the design of environments, service pathways, language, and professional relationships. I’ll also be using the insights I gained in my everyday work at the National Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine in Sheffield. As part of my role, I support local health and care systems to integrate physical activity into their pathways, and this experience has been extremely valuable to help progress this work.

For people living with cancer, the benefits of physical activity are truly life-changing, and in some cases, life-saving. That’s why making physical activity business as usual in cancer care is essential.

Read Beth’s full report here.

For more information, you can contact Beth on LinkedIn.