Published on: 30th June 2015
More than two million steps were notched up between the winning teams in this year’s Lincolnshire Healthcare Pedometer Challenge.
Staff from the county’s three main healthcare providers, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT), Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS), and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT), have been battling it out in teams in a bid to go one step beyond.
The six-week challenge was launched as part of the Spring Into Action campaign to help everyone improve their health and wellbeing in readiness for the warmer summer months.
Each staff member who signed up received their own pedometer counter to record their weekly steps, with the teams scoring the highest overall average coming out top.
The LPFT winners were made up of staff from the Integrated Community Mental Health team, with April Harrison, Mary O’Sullivan and Jeremy Faint putting their best feet forward to amass an impressive 733,306 between them.
Team Leader April said:
I do approximately 20 exercise classes per week, walk wherever I can, never take the lift and to be honest try to never sit down.
LCHS winning team The Molar Strollers completed a whopping 794,821 step average. The strollers were made up of members from the dental team and Oral Health Promoter, Gina Hargrave, said they’d enjoyed taking on the challenge.
Some members of the team who had dogs to walk made sure that their pooches were put through their paces, so our four-legged friends became fitter too. The main thing that came out of the challenge for us though is just don’t use the car if you walk it. Leave the lift, escape the escalator and just move more.
The winners from ULHT were the hard working Soldier Ants who clocked a very healthy tally of 787,638 steps.
Including staff from Lincoln’s Main Theatres department team leader Rachel Wright said:
As health care support workers we cover long distances every day, we are lucky to enjoy a role where exercise is a major part of our daily routines.
