GoTech in talks with NHS over 'skills2achieve' product

Sports and wellbeing focused technology company GoTech Group announced on Tuesday that it remained in discussions with the National Health Service, which was looking to support a potential pilot with around 200 schools nationwide to assess the impact of the ‘skills2achieve’ product in the health education of four-to-11 year olds in the fight against childhood obesity.

The AIM-traded firm added that, as part of the discussions, it was proposed that GoTech subsidiary Sportsdata would work closely with the NHS to develop evidence-based and associated case study material, which may be used by the NHS to endorse a national roll-out of S2A.

S2A was developed in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust, and was described by GoTech as a programme for young people that monitors and tracks pupil progress across four themes of ‘Healthy Me’, ‘Social Me’, ‘Thinking Me’ and ‘Physical Me’.

Focussed on engaging children’s motivation and commitment by putting pupils in control of their own progress, the programme reportedly aimed to develop more positive attitudes towards healthy, active lifestyles, emotional wellbeing and self-efficacy.

It was anticipated that around 70% of the schools in the proposed pilot would be in areas of deprivation and 30% in areas of non-deprivation.

GoTech said it was further anticipated that there would be opportunities for cross-fertilisation of school practice to develop key learning and development opportunities for senior leaders among different school structures.

The pilot would be subject to the company and the NHS - or one of its subsidiaries - entering into a formal agreement, and a further announcement on that would be made in due course.

GoTech said it was hopeful of being able to finalise the terms of the pilot with the NHS by the end of June, so that S2A can be implemented in the 200 schools in time for the commencement of the 2017/2018 academic year.

“We believe that the NHS’s interest in S2A raises its profile and demonstrates the exciting opportunity for it to be used as a tool that can help combat key health issues facing the population today,” said GoTech managing director Gail Ganney.

“Entering into this pilot will be a further step towards achieving our ultimate objective of engaging up 20,000 primary schools and 5.5 million four-to-11 year olds on the programme for health and physical activity, thus allowing a sea-change of attitude and a systemic change in the current health status of the UK for the next generation.”

Ganney said GoTech’s company strategy remained to be disruptive in transforming the way people participate in, coach and watch sports, whilst seeking to increase activity, participation and social connectivity at all levels.

“To this end, we are exploring other opportunities which are complementary to our existing products.”