Who we are and what we do
Are you...
- A passionate and inspiring sportsperson?
- An enthusiastic advocate of physical activity, for your staff and patients?
- Ready to be inspired by – and inspire – your fellow GPs?
- None of the above, but aware that you might feel a bit better if you moved a bit more?
Meet the RCGP Physical Activity Team:
The core team
Dr Hussain Al-Zubaidi
A member of the RCGP Physical Activity & Lifestyle team since 2021, I joined the team to share my positive experiences of joining the Active Practice Charter and contributed to the development and launch of the new PAL hub. I am a GP partner in Leamington Spa and the social prescribing co-lead for the Leamington PCN. I head the UKs first primary care based fitness club, sit on the advisory board for SWIM England and am the West Midlands regional lead for the mental health charity RUN TALK RUN.
I strongly
believe that lifestyle can be a powerful tool in the fight against many conditions both physical and mental while being a great way to socialise and stay connected with your community. I am a keen triathlete and try to use my own personal journey
of taking up physical activity from a previous sedentary lifestyle to promote its benefits.
Dr Callum Leese
Medically qualified at the University of Edinburgh, Callum is a GP in Aberfeldy, whilst working part-time at the University of Dundee undertaking research with the division of population health and genomics. He is co-founder of the community-based charity 'Healthiest Town' in Aberfeldy, Scotland where they try to enact and inspire local change and he is involved with the charity RunTalkRun.
Callum is a champion for physical activity and lifestyle at the RCGP. In 2023 Callum worked as a consultation with WHO Regional Office for Europe addressing physical activity promotion in primary care. He has also recently taken on lead of the BLSM physical activity specialist interest group. His research interest is physical activity, and specifically physical activity promotion and implementation in primary care. And out of this he founded and co-hosts ‘The Movement Prescription Podcast’. When not working, Callum will be found running, cycling, skiing or climbing.
You!
The amazing and growing network of GPs and colleagues who are doing amazing things in your practices and communities to support your teams and patients moving!
Launched in 2017, our team who were all part of the first cohort of PHE’s Clinical Champions, have been flying the flag for the growing number of primary care clinicians who are passionate about the vital role physical activity and other positive lifestyle behaviours can have on physical and mental wellbeing. We firmly believe that GPs and their teams play a vital and unique role in getting the country moving, as trusted community leaders.
From the firmly held principle that ‘we can’t do everything, but we must do something’, our mission is to embed physical activity and lifestyle (PAL) in primary care, by focusing on:
- Patients - Supporting GPs to assist ALL of their patients to optimize their physical activity and lifestyle choices
- Active Practices - Inspiring GPs and practice staff to lead by example, transforming their surgeries into beacons of good practice
- Local community - Facilitating positive relationships between primary care and physical activity and lifestyle providers locally
Since forming, we have represented the RCGP nationally and internationally in the physical activity and health fields, forging relationships with major stakeholders, across professional bodies and in the wider physical activity sector.
We have spoken on national and local media platforms, featured on podcasts, provided insight for government and other national strategies, represented the College at conferences – both health and beyond – and organised our own bespoke regional conferences, with local RCGP faculties. We held a full day virtual conference on physical activity and health in the height of the Covid pandemic which was attended by over 800 delegates.
We have developed resources to support fellow GPs, notably working on the Moving Medicine resource, and Motivate2Move, as well as our bespoke toolkit which now forms part of the Physical Activity Hub. We work closely with the parkrun practice team at the College.
Contact us
Get in touch with the team at ActivePractice@rcgp.org.uk if you have questions, suggestions or just want to say hi.