Doctors Prescribing Cycling

TO MOST CYCLISTS, THE IDEA OF PRESCRIBING cycling to improve mental health and wellbeing is pretty obvious really. People who ride regularly usually don’t visit their GP as often as others, and when they do they are congratulated for their active lifestyle.

And in Wales, there’s a program being trialled to actually prescribe cycling for improved mental and physical health. The pilot program, the first such initiative in Britain, according to the health board that is leading it, reflects an effort by medical professionals around the world to give patients alternatives to drugs, in order to avoid side effects and improve cost efficiency.

Patients at two medical centres in the Welsh capital Cardiff are offered six-month subscriptions to a bike-rental service that allows them to take unlimited free rides of up to 30 minutes at a time.

This program is part of a wider trend called social prescribing