Online programme ups exercise referral efficiency by 25% at Jersey Sport

Jersey Sport’s Exercise Referral scheme is being brought bang up to date with the introduction of an online management programme, enabling 25% more efficiency for the 20 year old scheme.

More than 1,000 residents go through Jersey Sport’s Exercise Referral scheme each year, and until now it’s been partly managed via a paper-based system with limited data to report on its impact on participants.

Jersey Sport is a new, independent coordinating body, borne out of the States of Jersey in its bid to give sport and physical activity a stronger voice on the Island.  The organisation acts as a delivery arm for the promotion and development of sport and active living on Jersey, working with the Island’s leisure centres.

Transitioning from the States of Jersey software to Gladstone’s Plus2 membership management system, Jersey Sport has also taken on Gladstone’s newly launched Health product, also available as a standalone product called iMPACT, for managing and measuring the impact of sport and leisure programmes on community health.

“It’s really important we have evidence of how our scheme is working to secure funding for further years, but it’s been very difficult to track until now,” Jersey Sport CEO Catriona McAllister said.  “Health is a game changer for us on so many levels, but particularly in proving that what we do is working.”

Jersey Sport will use the information garnered from Health to look into issues such as mental health, how clients are feeling and to demonstrate how this work can save public money.  One of the biggest day to day benefits will be the cost savings made by significantly reducing staff administration time.

“We spend an inordinate amount of time on administration,” said McAllister.  “Just one assessment can take an hour.  We expect to gain around 25% more delivery time as a result of Health, so our highly qualified GP referral staff can spend hands on time with patients, doing what they’re good at.”

Health enables patients to fill in their participation questionnaire ahead of their first appointment, which not only saves time during the first meeting, but also means staff are much better informed about what programme is most suitable when they arrive on site.

“The enrolment process is long and uses several different systems at the moment, so there’s lots of duplication,” said Jersey Sport’s Exercise Referral and Community Health Officer, Paola Mitchell, who manages the 12-week programmes.  “Not only will Health enable us to manage the whole process from one system, we can create our own bespoke questionnaires and tailor reports accordingly too.”

The team is particularly excited about the referrer and patient portals, which enable everyone to be kept up to date.  Participants can log in and look at their own journey, whilst GPs will be sent reports to show how their patients are progressing.  And, rather than spending time cold calling participants that haven’t turned up, Health can automatically send direct communications so that staff can remain busy on the gym floor.

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Editor’s notes:
Gladstone is the leading supplier of leisure and health outcome management software in the UK and Ireland.  Gladstone has been the chosen partner of leisure trusts, local authority sports facilities, international health club chains, universities and independent operators for 35 years. Today more than 30,000 users and two million members benefit from Gladstone products across the globe, including 55 per cent of the UK’s public sector leisure market.

Gladstone’s Health product enables providers to collate data and generate evidence of change as a result of health intervention programmes. The solution is also available as a standalone product under the brand name iMPACT. www.gladstonesoftware.co.uk

For further information contact:
Abigail Harris at Big Fish Public Relations
Tel: 07738 331019
Email: abigail@bigfishpublicrelations.co.uk