Health and Wellbeing Coach

About Personalised Care

Personalised care represents a new relationship between people, professionals and the health and care system. It provides a positive shift in power and decision making that enables people to have a voice, to be heard and be connected to each other and their communities.

This approach learns from the experience of social care in embedding personalised care in everyday practice, which has enabled people to take control over the funding for their care. It also builds on pockets of progress made in health.

Critically, personalised care takes a whole-system approach, integrating services around the person including health, social care, public health and wider services. It provides an all-age approach from maternity and childhood right through to end of life, encompassing both mental and physical health and recognises the role and voice of carers. It recognises the contribution of communities and the voluntary and community sector to support people and build resilience.

Overview

Health and wellbeing coaches support people to increase their ability to self-manage, motivation levels and commitment to change their lifestyle. They are experts in behaviour change and focus on improving health related outcomes by working with people to set personalised goals and change their behaviours. They work with people with physical and/or mental health conditions and those at risk of developing them.

Health and wellbeing coaches can be an effective intervention for people experiencing a range of long term conditions, including respiratory, cardiovascular (including type 2 diabetes and hypertension), and stress/low mood. They can also support people with weight management, diet and increasing activity levels. (NHSE, 2025)

Health and wellbeing coaches can work in a variety of settings across health and care, including but not limited to primary care, secondary care, community services, acute services, and children and family services. They play a key role in multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) and work in partnership with colleagues to optimise outcomes for people and populations. (NHSE, 2023)

Role Responsibilities

• Work with patients to identify their goals and support them in managing their own health and wellbeing and live independently
• Work alongside health, social care, voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations
• Provide education and specialist expertise to health staff, aiding their skills and understanding of personalised care and behavioural approaches
• Promote personal choice and positive risk-taking, while addressing potential consequences and ensuring patients take accountability for their decisions based on what matters to them
• Provide support  1:1 or via group
• Support to create a richer picture on practice population health needs and risks; by gaining information about patients’ treatment histories, medication adherence, new symptoms, and management of chronic conditions

Boundaries of Health and Wellbeing Coaches:

Health and wellbeing coaches need to be aware that their role is non-clinical, keeping the focus on what is important to the person and not being drawn into taking a prescriptive or directive approach. For example, if supporting someone around weight management it is not the role of a health and wellbeing coach to diagnose and prescribe specific diets.

Training and Development

Supervision Requirements

Supervision is a process of professional learning and development that enables individuals to reflect on and develop their knowledge, skills and competence, through regular support from another professional.

Supervision can have different forms and functions and a number of terms are used to describe these. For this guidance we use the below terms and define them as follows:

• Educational supervision: supports learning and enables learners to achieve proficiency.
• Clinic/practice supervision: day-to-day support provided by a named/duty senior/more experienced clinician for issues arising in the practice.
• Clinical/professional supervision: regular support from a named senior/experienced clinician/practitioner to promote high clinical standards and develop professional expertise.

Health and well-being Coach Supervision:

Supervisors play an essential role in supporting health and wellbeing coaches ongoing development. They should work alongside health and wellbeing coaches to set and measure goals and examine how they are improving outcomes for patients. They should also monitor how health and wellbeing coaches are meeting their competencies at various stages of their career, alongside assessing training and continuing professional development (CPD) needs.

The line management supervisor will play a key role in this process through regular meetings, appraisals and personal development plans (PDPs), and having an overview of all supervision arrangements that are in place. However, the health coaching supervisor (experienced health coach) would be an essential part of the process in ongoing assessment of a health and wellbeing coach’s coaching competencies and fitness to practise. 

It is recommended that H&WBC’s have access to appropriate supervision and an appropriate named individual in the PCN with the relevant competencies, as described in the career framework, e.g. GP, senior clinician/professional including advanced Practitioner.  In addition, the H&WBC must have access to regular supervision from a health coaching mentor (experienced health coach, accredited by the PCI), Recommended minimum frequency of a 1-hour supervision meeting is monthly.  (NHSE Supervision guidance, 2023)

Supervision Guidance for primary care network multidisciplinary teams (NHSE, 2023)

NHS England » Workforce development framework for health and wellbeing coaches