Exercise classes available to families of staff

Posted by Devon Partnership Trust in News, Recovery and wellbeing on 3rd December, 2020

The focus on staff wellbeing has never been more important and recently the Physical Therapies Team (PTT) at Langdon launched a range of exercise class opportunities for staff to access. We are delighted to announce that this offer has now been extended to the families of Devon Partnership NHS Trust (DPT) staff.

Families will be able to view any of the classes below at any time that suits them through our YouTube channel. As for the live classes available through MS Teams, family members of staff will need to register their place by emailing Jack Phillips, to ensure we can account for everyone taking part. 

Working alongside a professional film company, following strict COVID-19 social distancing rules, the team has put together a number of fantastic instructor-led workouts.

Jack Phillips, Physical Health Practitioner said: "It has been a busy couple weeks moving slightly faster than expected with gyms becoming part of the national lockdown restrictions. We wanted to get a course readily available for staff to look after their physical and mental wellbeing.

"With a fantastic amount of support from the Communications Team and Fresh Ground Films, the Physical Therapies Team spent a day filming a range of exercise classes that can be accessed through the DPT YouTube channel at any time of the day.

"This was something that was out of the norm for the team but we are really happy with the results that are now ready for all staff in our organisation to use. Please also feel free to use for other patient groups as long as medical sign off has been given."

Natasha Willis, Physical Activity Support Worker at Langdon, leads many of the workouts and said: "I really enjoyed filming the classes. It felt great putting together everything that I learnt over the past year. I’m hoping they really help those that are isolating or working from home feel happier and fitter. It’s important that as a team all working for our organisation that we unite and come together during this tough time. The workouts are fun to do, we have a large selection of classes to suit everyone."

At the moment there are six classes recorded and ready to use. These can all be found on a dedicated 'PTT playlist' on YouTube here and are:

• Traffic Light HIIT
• Traffic Light Legs Bums Tums
• Home Resistance Workout
• Stretch
• Freestyle Fitness Yoga & Pilates
• Bike Blast

Jack continues: "We also understand that the social aspect of exercising is huge for so many of us, and with staff having to isolate/work from home loneliness can take a huge toll on our mental health.

"We also started running live exercise classes twice a week and after a successful trial we will start to increase this depending on demand. These are available for anyone that works for DPT and you can join us by adding the following MS Teams links below. You just need a little bit of space and you are ready to go! All classes are suitable for all abilities. We hope to see you all soon and remember it is important to look after ourselves in these testing times."