Why did we create this social enterprise?

Regular physical activity is important for everyone, however for our target market it is just as important that the activity is safe, suitable and adapted to their individual needs. The initiative has developed from work carried out for the NHS in Islington which provided funding for patients to access community services outside of the NHS. The issue we faced is that residents did not know where they could find services that were suitable to work with their disability. Realising that this was a structural problem nationwide, we decided to tackle the issue head on and program the Salusa website to make this information accessible to everyone, anywhere.

What do we provide?

We provide an accessible platform for people with a long term health condition, disability or older adults to access safe and suitable physical activity services. Each organisation or professional listed on our platform– ranging from personal trainers and exercises classes to physios and yoga- is specifically qualified and experienced to work our target client groups. We allow the user to search for services by the specific health or disability experience, and plan to verify services by checking registration with a professional body, qualifications and insurance. Services are also independently reviewed by the users.

We will continue to position ourselves within health and social care pathways for personalisation, exercise and rehabilitation, providing a single point of access to refer to or recommend verified physical activity services and professionals within the community. Additionally, we provide a platform to promote various events from community open days and workshops to training courses and industry conferences. Our resource is also a community social network of professionals, organisations and individuals accessing services, complete with social profiles, groups and forums to encourage peer interaction.

Our social impact

We will measure our social impact by tracking improvements in physical wellbeing outcomes as a result of accessing new specialist services. We will also be identifying reductions in social isolation through attending group activity and connecting with others through our social network. Our objective is to completely change how people can access this support and ensure that health professionals, including GP’s, feel confident to recommend or refer to community activity or therapy through our resource. We will be exploring innovative digital solutions to track and display these outcomes.

Profits generated from the enterprise will be reinvested back into generating more community activity services in areas identified as having the most need.

Meet the team

Our CEO, Matt Stafford, has a health and social care commissioning background focusing on preventative projects and addressing social and economic barriers to achieving good health and wellbeing. Amy Silverston, our non-executive director, has also been living with Multiple Sclerosis since 2005 and provides invaluable guidance around the challenges of accessing specialist physical activity from a user’s perspective. Finally, Jake Woodley directs our marketing strategy and will be utilising his wealth of digital marketing experience to ensure we are able to reach as many people as possible with our resource.