Seeing staff cycling & walking may encourage patients to do the same
Frees up parking space for patients with mobility issues
Benefits for Your Practice
Physical and mental health benefits of active travel for staff
Cycling or walking likely to be cheaper for staff than using a car
Benefits for The Planet
Reduced carbon emissions from travel
Reduced air pollution
Opportunity for improvement
Active travel refers to modes of travel that involve a level of activity. The term is often used interchangeably with walking and cycling, but active travel can also include trips made by wheelchair, adapted cycles, e-cycles, scooters, as well as cycle sharing schemes.
Why is this important?
Approximately 3.5% (9.5 billion miles) of all road travel in England relates to patients, visitors, staff and suppliers to the NHS, contributing around 14% of the health system’s total emissions.
Patient and staff travel is the second largest contributor to the carbon footprint of primary care.
In addition to reducing carbon emissions, active travel has the additional benefits of improving physical activity for staff.
Physical inactivity costs the NHS £1 billion per year, with additional indirect costs of £8.2 billion
Regular physical activity reduced risk of heart disease, asthma, diabetes and cancer.
A 3-mile active commute will achieve recommended levels of activity each week
Exercise, particularly outdoor, can protect against anxiety and depression, and can increase productivity
Moving away from car travel will also reduce air pollution, which is a major health risk.
This quality improvement project outlines how to gather data on how GP practice staff travel to work and then implement and evaluate interventions to increase use of active and sustainable travel by staff (see disclaimers).
You might like to create a SMART goal for this project e.g. collect baseline travel data for at least 70% of staff, run a cycle safety training session and install a new bike rack within the next 4 months.
How to carry out this project
Baseline data collection
Adapt this travel survey for use in your surgery and collect responses from staff
Analyse results
You can use the electronic travel survey to generate a report of the responses by clicking the “Responses” button in the top right. You can also generate a slideshow which you might like to which you can present at a staff meeting. This can be used to generate discussions about the interventions which could enable staff to use active and sustainable modes of transport.
Plan and implement intervention
Design interventions which encourage staff to have as much active travel as possible. Targeting 100% active travel is unrealistic, but encouraging being active some of the time can feel more achievable.
Types of Intervention
The intervention will depend on what opportunities are identified from the travel survey. Below are some suggestions:
Run training session for staff on the benefits of active and sustainable travel
Install cycle storage – grants may be available (see websites below)
Improve the changing and showering facilities at the practice
LifeCycle deliver the Take a Stand scheme which offers secure, subsidised cycle parking for small businesses in multiple locations in the UK. s
Sustrans is a charity which promotes walking, wheeling and cycling to create healthier places and happier lives for everyone. They are the custodian of the National Cycle Network.
Our World in Data has an article on which form of transport has the smallest carbon footprint
More ideas are available on the Cornwall & SW Primary Care Health & Climate Resilience Network website
Evaluate Interventions
This can be done either by repeating the staff travel survey used in Step 1, or by creating a shorter evaluation survey for the specific intervention. Other options for evaluating the intervention could include a short focus group.
Study
Review the results, summarise learning, share with practice team + decide if any changes are needed to improve the process. Decide when to re-audit again to ensure the change has lasted e.g. 6-12 months and use the Project Monitoring form to keep track.
How to scale this project up or down
Please note - Use of this project requires NetworkPLUS membership. If you would like to share this project with others, please invite them to purchase their own membership—access must not be shared with non-members.
Patient involvement
Helping patients to use active and sustainable travel can deliver health improvements in addition to carbon savings. You might like to consider:
Contacting your local bus service to improve bus connections to the practice
RCGP Active Practice Charter
This QIP can form part of an application for the practice to be recognised as an Active Practice under the RCGP Active Practice Charter. It demonstrates steps to reduce sedentary behaviour and increase physical activity in staff.
Large organisations
You could upscale this project by taking it to your PCN or Cluster to implement across all practices in your PCN.
Case studies
One of our lead nurses is a keen cyclist and she has done a brilliant job of inspiring other staff members to cycle. We installed a new bike rack, created a practice bicycle repair kit and joined the local 'Love to Ride' scheme.
Some staff were worried about road safety so we ran a cycle safety session with Life cycle, a local charity.
It's a joy to see our bicycle area regularly overflowing with bikes.
Charlotte Keel Medical Practice, Bristol
In 2023, an Oxford community district nursing team tried e-bikes for a 6-month period. Read the project guide here.
District Nurses E-bike Trial, Oxford
Have you completed this QIP?
Tell us a little about your project in order to generate a certificate showing the probable benefits. This project may help with CQC evidence submission (see disclaimers).
