Health Connect Coaching Programme
NHS Health Connect Coaching
St Edmunds
Victoria Place Road
Torquay TQ1 3QH
What is Health Connect Coaching?
The Health Connect Coaching Programme is a volunteer, peer-led, health and wellbeing coaching programme that has been designed and developed with people who have lived experience of long-term health conditions. This programme aims to support and empower individuals who are struggling to manage their condition, to build their knowledge, skills and confidence for better self-management, encouraging individuals to take back control of their health and wellbeing, in a way which matters most to them.
Individuals (also known as ‘peers’) accessing the programme will be carefully matched with one of our trained Volunteer Coaches who has experience of the same or similar health condition or symptoms, someone who just understands and ‘gets it’.
Health Connect Coaching are proud national finalists for the NHS Parliamentary Awards 2023 and Winners of the NHS England South West Integrated Personalised Care Awards 2022 for Living in a Digital age.
How did Health Connect Coaching come about?
The Health Connect Coaching Programme grew out of a large co-design event held in September 2019, where over 135 people living with long term health conditions, and some of the clinical teams who support them, came together to envision how through working together, each bringing their different strengths, people could be better supported to manage their health and wellbeing.
A group of people worked away in the background during the first two COVID lock-downs to develop the ideas that came from the co-design event into a service that we are now testing and continuing to improve alongside people with lived-experience as we go along.
How does the programme work?
Once a peer is carefully matched with their trained, supervised and supported volunteer coach regular 1:1 meetings occur over six-months. Generally, peers have 14 health and wellbeing coaching sessions, using a step-down approach which is personalised to the individuals’ needs. Our volunteer coaches connect with their peer(s) for months 1 and 2 on a weekly basis, months 3 and 4 on a fortnightly basis, and months 5 and 6 on a monthly basis.
Months 5 and 6 – monthly sessions – 3
Months 3 and 4 – fortnightly sessions – 2
Months 1 and 2 – weekly sessions – 1
The coaching sessions are predominantly delivered online, on a platform called Microsoft Teams, which are set up and monitored by our coordinators. We do not support our volunteers to have any contact with peers physically in their own home i.e. no home visits.
If you have not accessed Microsoft Teams before, please don’t worry, our coordinators are here to support and guide you.
Who can access the programme?
The Health Connect Coaching Programme can be accessed by anyone over the age of 18, living in Torbay and South Devon, or accessing Torbay and South Devon health and social care services, although our coaches do not have to live in the area, as the sessions are mainly delivered online.
To access this programme as a ‘Peer’, you must be someone who is:
- Currently finding managing their long-term health condition / symptoms a challenge.
- Looking to make positive changes to improve their overall health and wellbeing.
Please note: we appreciate that mental health concerns often come hand-in-hand when living with a long-term health condition, however, this must not be the primary reason for accessing this programme. Our volunteer Health Connect Coaches are not professionally trained to deal with mental health conditions, although this is touched upon as part of the training. If you would like support to deal with your mental health issues, please [email recipient=" tsdft.healthconnectcoaching" recipient_name="Health Connect Coaching coordinators" subject="Health Connect Coaching Programme enquiry" title="contact our Health Connect Coaching coordinators"]get in touch with our coordinators, they would be more than happy to signpost you to the appropriate services.