Will the NHS step count app get people back to work?

Is there really any point to the NHS app monitoring people’s step count? This is the latest announcement from Health Secretary Victoria Atkins, who wants to use the app as the ‘front door to prevention’ and helping people back into work. It is easily caricatured as a modern-day Norman Tebbit ‘on yer bike’ measure, suggesting to the long-term sick that if only they walk 10,000 steps a day, they’ll get back into a job.

Except perhaps they will. We have a number of problems with our current approach to illness. One of them is that we tend to view everything through a biomedical model when other interventions can be as, if not more, powerful and permanent. Mental health problems are one of the most common reasons for people being out of work, particularly among the youngest cohort of 16-34 year olds. While anti-depressants have a reasonably strong evidence base behind them, so does moderate exercise, including walking.