{"id":1744,"date":"2020-06-01T12:21:22","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T12:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tpchealth.com\/academy\/?p=1744"},"modified":"2020-06-01T12:21:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T12:21:22","slug":"enabling-personalised-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tpchealth.com\/academy\/blog\/2020\/06\/01\/enabling-personalised-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Enabling Personalised Care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Enabling personalised care: the art of health coaching<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extracts from the Future Hospital Partners Network piece to introduce the article Health changing conversations: clinicians\u2019 experience of health coaching in the East of England in the Future Hospital\u2019s Journal. by Dr Penny Newman & Dr Andrew McDowell,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Health Coaching?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Health coaching is defined as ‘helping patients gain the knowledge, skills, tools and confidence to become active participants in their care so that they can reach their self-identified health goals’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is growing evidence that health coaching training can enable clinicians to deliver more personalised care to patients. There are also indications that health coaching can help increase patients\u2019 levels of satisfaction, motivation and confidence, which in turn results in changes in health-related behaviours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are benefits for clinicians from using these approaches too.  We have all felt overwhelmed by our work in the NHS at some point. We are being asked to care for more and more patients with fewer and fewer resources, and there are times when it can feel as though we\u2019re failing to make the difference we want to people’s lives. There are also times when it can feel like patients\u2019 expectations are at odds with our own, or we sense people could do more to help themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expectation vs reality<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a clinician, a natural response to these situations is frustration. As a result, we may try to tell patients what to do, make decisions for them, and fall back on the ‘doctor knows best’ model, especially because of the time pressure we experience. But, in the words of Dr Angela Coulter, of the Nuffield Department of Population Health (NDPH) at the University of Oxford, ‘paternalism breeds dependency, encourages passivity and undermines people\u2019s capacity to look after themselves’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, one option is to ask ourselves whether the way we communicate information could be different. The evidence suggests that only a third of patients take their medication as instructed and only half feel sufficiently involved in decisions about their own care. This suggests there is a mismatch between what patients want, what is realistic within the context of their lives, and what we as clinicians expect from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power of effective communication<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our view, effective communication is the most overlooked skill in the clinical workforce. Our work in the East of England has shown that health coaching skills have helped:<\/p>\n\n\n\n