Nottingham Trent University announce plans to create a Sport and Well-being Academy

Nottingham Trent University (NTU) has announced plans to create a Sport and Wellbeing Academy which will offer exercise, nutritional support and advice for patients through an NHS referral.

The academy will be based at the Clifton Campus and will feature custom-built facilities including a studio with new exercise, assessment equipment and consultation rooms for one-to-one discussions. Patients will receive a health and fitness assessment along with a supervised exercise prescription by qualified practitioners.

The academy will provide a free consultancy service playing a key role in helping to reduce local health inequalities around physical activity and healthy eating. Patients will be referred to the academy by the Clifton and Meadows NHS Primary Care Network Social Prescribing Service.

As well as being available for the general public, the academy will provide support to NTU sports teams offering pathways to sports coaching in primary and secondary schools in the Nottingham area. It will help to facilitate the local provision of ‘The Daily Mile’, a school-based physical activity initiative, and involve coaching multi-sports and specialist sports in schools.

This will mean the creation of five new roles utilising existing university expertise. It will provide sport science students with work experience opportunities around sports performance, clinical exercise physiology and physical activity.

It is hoped that the academy will help to reduce health inequalities by removing traditional barriers to exercise and healthy eating specifically relating to cost, accessibility and fear of a public gym environment. The academy aims to equip students for highly-skilled roles in careers such as clinical exercise physiology, youth coaching and sports performance.

Professor Edward Peck, President and Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham Trent University, said: “This is one more example of the positive impact on local people of the presence of Nottingham Trent University in the city. It expands further an approach that already utilises staff and student expertise to provide, amongst other contributions, free legal advice, Notts TV, and extensive support to pupils in local schools.”

Professor Angus Hunter, Head of Sports Science at Nottingham Trent University’s School of Science and Technology, said: “This important initiative will provide a free referral service and tackle local inequalities to support people’s health and well-being. Newly-appointed practitioners, university researchers and students will combine to make this a safe, welcoming and dedicated space.

“Sport and exercise science at NTU has rapidly evolved over recent years and this is an opportunity to bring together our world-leading expertise and state-of-the-art equipment to create a real impact in the community.”