We've awarded the Open Data Institute (ODI) a further £700,000 of National Lottery funding over the next two years to continue delivering OpenActive.
First launched in 2016, OpenActive seeks to help people find local exercise opportunities more easily by making the data about these opportunities easy to access, use or be shared as open data.
Part of this extra funding will allow OpenActive to work more closely with healthcare systems, to pilot ways of making it easier for GPs and healthcare professionals to connect patients with suitable local activities.
Stewarded by the ODI, OpenActive is vital to our long-term strategy Uniting the Movement, as the challenge of finding information about local opportunities to be active is a persistent barrier to those people and communities already facing inequalities in activity levels.
It also aligns with the government's 10-Year Health Plan for England, supporting the intended shift from treatment to prevention, analogue to digital and hospital to community.
Our chair, Chris Boardman, recognises that improving the sport and physical activity sector’s ability to publish high-quality data has the potential to transform the nation’s health.
"Physical activity is one of the most powerful tools we have for improving health, but only if people, and healthcare practitioners, can find and recommend suitable opportunities," he said.
"OpenActive provides the digital infrastructure that makes this possible at scale."
The funding extension, to June 2027, takes our investment in this phase of the project to £2.4 million, with a total investment since 2016 of £5.6m.
The ODI will use the latest investment to focus on three key areas:
- Improving the data standards specifically for healthcare and social prescribing integration.
- Expanding use cases across sports clubs, healthcare and active travel.
- Establishing a sustainable governance model that could support other public service data standards.