Nurse-led help just a phone call away

A first-of-its-kind direct-to-consumer health coaching service, MyClinicalCoach, has been launched to revolutionise the way in which millions of patients in the UK with long-term health conditions can manage their own health independently and effectively.

This innovation is being introduced to market by Totally Health, the leading provider of clinical health coaching via the NHS.

Over a quarter of the population in England has a long-term condition such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, heart failure or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and an increasing proportion of these people have multiple conditions.

In addition, the medical profession acknowledges that there remain millions of people who are undiagnosed with chronic conditions and many who are a risk of developing diseases.

MyClinicalCoach now looks set to transform care for these patients, giving people direct access to tailored care delivered by a personal coach – an NHS trained nurse - to transform their health from less than £1 per day.

Evidence of the potential benefits of this new service are very strong, with results showing that following a programme of clinical health coaching, 96% of patients felt more knowledgeable about their condition, 100% of patients felt more confident about being able to manage their condition, and 96% of patients felt motivated to make behavioural changes such as smoking cessation, more exercise, medication compliance etc.

MyClinicalCoach offers a variety of membership packages to support individuals in managing their health and ensure that every programme is tailored to help people manage their disease at each different stage.

The clinically-focused and patient-centered service provides patients with 12 months of tailored one-to-one clinical health coaching from an NHS trained nurse, followed by a six-month maintenance programme.

Patients are free to call as often as needed and MyClinicalCoach nurses will arrange the phone calls, following an assessment with the client to allow the clinical health coach to tailor the support to the patient and their condition.

The service aims to support people with their everyday experiences of the condition, preparing patients to manage their treatments effectively and make lifestyle changes to increase activity and vitality. The Premier service offers extended evening hours and Saturday mornings.

Totally Health has created the service to support people who cannot access clinical health coaching services through their local NHS or who wish to enrol directly. It enables patients to manage their own health better to avoid reliance on urgent GP and hospital services and to support the NHS to meet its targets by providing patients with the option to access high-quality out-of-hospital care, as an additional support network.

The NHS Five Year Forward View notes that ‘long- term conditions are now a central task of the NHS’.

Caring for these needs requires a partnership with patients over the longer term rather than providing single, unconnected ‘episodes’ of care. Totally Health and MyClinicalCoach have created a service to transform health and wellbeing by changing the emhasis from ‘What’s the matter’ to ‘What matters to you?’.

This means moving away from a paternalistic and dependent consultation model of ‘fixing’ to one that is empowering and increases patient activation, confidence, compliance and healthy behaviours, which are all needed to improve outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.

Emma-Jane Roberts, managing director of My Clinical Coach, said: “Our patient feedback consistently tells us that the practical and emotional support we provide through clinical health coaching is invaluable and we are delighted to widen out this support to all those with a long-term health condition via the unique subscription service MyClinicalCoach.

“The prevalence of long-term health conditions is on the increase, with latest figures showing that there are now four million people in the UK diagnosed with diabetes alone.

“It is widely acknowledged in the medical profession that for patients with these types of long-term conditions, having a greater understanding of their condition can empower patients to make more informed decisions about medication, lifestyle and other treatment options.

“MyClinical Coach expert nurse coaches have a wealth of clinical experience and know how to provide patients with the education, support and motivation needed to cope with a diagnosis and manage a condition in the longer term. And, as all of our nurses have been trained and worked in the NHS, patients are assured that MyClinicalCoach follows existing healthcare pathways and complements the care that they will already receive through the NHS.”