It’s time the sector stopped waiting for permission to save the world and just got on with it, inspired by audacious innovators who are demonstrating how partnerships can build new models

We’ve been reporting on the collaboration between health and fitness and the health service since GP referrals in the 1980s.

There have been some fantastic milestones along the way, SIV’s mental health membership, GM Active’s Prehab4Cancer, Nuffield and Manchester Met’s collaboration, KA Leisure’s wellness membership and the work of Sport for Confidence, to name but a few.

Now a team in Sussex UK is breaking the mould with a new model that brings together a wellness trust and a GP Federation to jointly own and run a health, fitness and wellness facility in what we think may be a first for the sector (page 28).

Dr Nick Harvey set up a GP Federation called South Downs Health and Care Ltd to deliver primary care services in Eastbourne, while Duncan Kerr is CEO of Wave Active, an operator with 17 sites in Sussex.

Together, their two organisations are now 50:50 owners of what was once the sport centre and campus of famed teacher training college Chelsea School – later Brighton University’s Eastbourne Campus – and affectionately known as Hillbrow.

As joint owners of the new entity which has been set up to own the site – called Hillbrow Health and Wellbeing Ltd – the two are powering forward with plans to offer a wide range of medical and wellness services, all under the same roof.

These will include sport, physical activity, active health, clinical active health and clinical, as well as a range of behavioural change interventions and on-site doctors and therapists.

“We’re not just co-locating, we’re one entity that has clinical governance embedded into its foundations” says Harvey. “We believe strongly in our preventative healthcare vision, so we’ve gone off on our own to do it. This is a mission- and purpose-driven concept that’s fully funded by us.”

This move to act independently echoes a major theme at the recent Active Uprising conference in London where delegates heard multiple speakers calling for the sector to make things happen for itself and not wait for health services and governments to lead the way.

We agree – after decades of exhausting lobbying, which has drained resources and morale, it’s time to take inspiration from examples such as Hillbrow and forge ahead with radical plans to make a difference.

After all, no one knows better than our sector visionaries what a difference we’re capable of making.