The Case for Health Coaching

Lessons learned from implementing a training and development intervention for clinicians across the East of England

The subject of this report is the IES evaluation of an education initiative/ development intervention consisting of a two-day health coaching programme for 777 clinicians and a further four-day programme for 25 of the clinicians to become in-house NHS clinician trainers in health coaching for skills transfer and sustainability. The intervention was commissioned by Health Education East of England during 2013/2014.

The aims of the evaluation were:

• To explore views on whether health coaching has been a useful approach for clinicians and their patients; and whether it has resulted in any changes to their thinking and practice.
• To describe the health coaching intervention within each pilot organisation; contextualise it within local strategies on long term conditions (LTC), engagement and patient experience, and the process of implementation.
• To liaise and support local representatives in identifying outcome data relevant to their unique context and examine evidence of impact.