Academics from Loughborough University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences (SSEHS), together with Partners from the Leicester Diabetes Centre (LDC) and UK logistics company, Wincanton, have been shortlisted for a prestigious 2025 HSJ Partnership Award. The team are finalists in the ‘Most Impactful Partnership in Preventative Healthcare’ category, for their work which has translated and implemented the Structured Health Intervention For Truckers (SHIFT) programme into a driver training module.
The HSJ Partnership Awards recognise outstanding dedication to improving healthcare and effective collaboration with the NHS. Now in their eighth year, the HSJ Partnership Awards have become the most recognised and respected mark of the strongest relationships between suppliers and the NHS.
The SHIFT programme aims to significantly improve the health and wellbeing of truck drivers by addressing the unique challenges they face, such as long hours of sitting, limited physical activity, and poor dietary options. It introduces an innovative, evidence-based approach to tackle obesity, cardiovascular risks, and other health conditions associated with a sedentary lifestyle.
SHIFT was developed and evaluated by SSEHS and LDC researchers. The team has recently worked in partnership with Wincanton to implement the programme in the real world.
Wincanton has integrated the SHIFT programme into their driver training as part of their compulsory Certificate of Professional Competency (CPC) module, making it the first evidence-based health promotion programme integrated into a professional competency framework for over 8,000 drivers.
The programme aspires to set a new industry standard for health interventions, reducing health inequalities and improving life expectancy for drivers in a sector where health concerns are often neglected.
Project lead, Professor Stacy Clemes, from the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University, said: “We have been delighted to work with Wincanton to implement the SHIFT programme into a CPC module. Seeing our research put into practice, and making a real impact on people’s lives, is extremely rewarding.
“Our ambition is to make SHIFT accessible to all UK HGV drivers. This partnership is enabling us to evaluate our programme in a real-world setting, providing us with essential feedback to inform a much larger scale-up of the programme.”
The 2025 awards judging panel was made up of a diverse range of highly influential and respected figures within the healthcare community, with over 280 submissions considered across all categories.
The selected winners will be announced during the awards ceremony at Evolution London on 20th March 2025.
The full list of nominees for the 2025 HSJ Partnership Awards can be found at https://partnership.hsj.co.uk/finalists-2025