OCL are leading the way in health and wellbeing

A report has called for more support for community businesses such as OCL

A new research report has highlighted Oldham Community Leisure (OCL) as an example of how community businesses are leading the way in delivering health and wellbeing services, which could fundamentally ease the strain on the NHS.

The report is published in partnership between the Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research (CEEDR) at Middlesex University London (MDX) and Social Enterprise UK, and funded by Power to Change.

It calls for more support for community businesses such as OCL, which it states are central to building a health service based on prevention.

As a not-for-profit leisure trust, OCL has worked with MDX on two previous research projects.

Entitled The role of community businesses in providing health and wellbeing services: Challenges, opportunities and support, the report highlights that all third sector businesses need assistance to remain sustainable in the continued climate of austerity, with increased competition for limited funding.

Dr. Bianca Stumbitz from the Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research at MDX, said: “As a community business rooted in its local area, OCL clearly demonstrates the important role third sector businesses play in providing health and wellbeing services.

"The strength of many community businesses is their local knowledge and ability to utilise community embeddedness as a resource, while tailoring their services in response to local needs.”

As well as operating a range of leisure, sport and fitness facilities on behalf of the town council, OCL provides inclusive fitness and wellbeing classes to overcome cultural and other barriers to physical activity.

Stuart Lockwood, CEO at OCL, added: “This is achieved by reaching out to those who wouldn’t normally use a gym, for example we deliver exercise classes in residential homes and women-only classes in community centres.

"OCL also works in co-operation with the community police service to address the town’s history of ethnic and racial divisions and reduce conflict.

"This report urges commissioners of health and social care services to nurture third sector businesses such as ours, in order to offset problems in the future.”

Lockwood, who is also chair of Sporta, the national association that represents leisure trusts, said: “We at Sporta have been working behind the scenes to extol the virtues of genuine charitable trusts that are reinvesting surpluses to benefit the local community, and the report’s recommendations could not have come at a better time.”

The report puts forward two key suggestions. NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care need to recognise the potential of community businesses to ease the pressure on the wider NHS, and commissioners of health services need to better use the Social Value Act to consider the wider social impact of the services they commission, which, in turn will allow community businesses to flourish.

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