Healthy Weight Coaches

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Understanding the role of Healthy Weight Coaches in the weight management system

• IRAS ID

  335395

• Contact name

  Charlotte Albury

• Contact email

  charlotte.albury@phc.ox.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University Of Oxford

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 10 months, 3 days

• Research summary

  Background
  Healthy Weight Coaches (HWC) support people with obesity to access weight loss services. However, as this role is new we do not know who has taken up the HWC role, how this new role fits in, and what patients think about HWCs. This project will help us find this out, and learn how health weight coaches can support their patients.
  We will find out about:
  • The role of HWCs in primary care weight management
  • Patients’ and carers’ experiences of HWCs
  • How HWCs can have supportive conversations about weight

  What will we do?
  We will ask some questions in a survey to find out if and how the role of HWCs varies across England.
  We will also work with 5 primary care sites, across the country, to:
  1. Speak to primary care workers, including HWCs, to understand how HWCs fit in the primary care team and with the weight management support options available.
  2. Produce a diagram that shows how the HWC fits in with other weight loss support for patients.
  3. Record up to 100 HWC consultations (with patients' and companions' permission), and use a method called conversation analysis to understand what works well and not so well in these conversations.
  4. Ask patients and carers about how HWC appointments were offered to them and what their expectations were. We will speak to patients about how the appointment went, and, 15 weeks later, ask if they followed the HWC’s advice.
  Our PPI panel, and other stakeholders will help choose the most important results. We will run a workshop together to co-design training to help HWCs have better conversations with patients.

  PPI
  Nine patients and carers helped design this project, and seventeen commented on our lay summary. A patient and carer group will work with us throughout the study.

• REC name

  Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  24/YH/0204

• Date of REC Opinion

  4 Sep 2024

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion