Health and Wellbeing Coach

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Benefits of the Health and Wellbeing Coach

Health and Wellbeing Coaches work with people with Long Term Conditions to support lifestyle change in order to better improve their health, or management of their condition. The priority of the role is not to advise but to find the service users intrinsic motivation for behaviour change.

A Health Coach will use coaching conversation tools and motivational interviewing techniques to build the service users’ knowledge, skills and confidence, empowering them to take a more leading role when it comes to their health. This will lead to the service user requiring fewer appointments with their GP/nurse as they manage their condition better, and in some cases may even reverse the long-term condition entirely.

Qualification requirements

Every Health and Wellbeing Coach that starts in this role should be offered a 4 day training accredited by the Personalised Care Institute as standard. There is then an expectation that the coach should have regular ongoing supervision with a qualified Health Coach Supervisor. This is something that can be accessed regionally.

There are many avenues into a Health Coach role, the main priority being an ability to be a skilled, empathic listener with a background knowledge in healthy lifestyle behaviours.

Role duties

A Health Coaches appointments will be a suitable length of time to offer the service user the space to discuss “What matters to you.” This may vary depending on the individual and the practice, but 45-60 minutes would be a reasonable time for a first appointment. The service is patient-centred and should therefore offer some flexibility in terms of length and frequency of appointments. Over several weeks, the appointments should become more infrequent in order to build the individuals confidence until they feel able to continue without the support of the Health Coach.

A Health and Wellbeing Coach will not see anybody under the age of 18, nor somebody who is acutely unwell or in a mental health crisis. However, they can work with people whom, if they were to make lifestyle changes it would improve their health outcomes. For example, people who fall into the unhealthy weight category, people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, poorly managed diabetes and low-level mental health problems.

Some practices/PCN’s might have a particular cohort of patients that they would like their Health Coach to focus on, and some may want the referrals to be as unrestrictive as possible. Anybody can benefit from Health Coaching, so it is important to find out what is needed within the patient population and tailor the service accordingly.