New NHS Health Check Training Resource Pack

The NHS Health Check Programme is a key element of a comprehensive approach to improving CVD outcomes for individuals and for populations. People between the ages of 40 and 74 without existing cardiovascular disease should be invited for an NHS Health Check every five years. The aim is to identify people at increased risk of cardiovascular disease and to connect them with the advice and support they need to help them reduce their risk and prevent future ill health through earlier intervention. London continues to improve its delivery of the NHS Health check since local programmes restarted after the pandemic.

Having a trained and competent NHS Health Checks workforce is essential to fully realise the benefits of the programme.

Staff delivering NHS Health Checks are expected to have undergone face-to-face training and have on-going clinical supervision. As well as ensuring staff are technically competent to deliver a NHS Health Check, staff must also be able to communicate appropriately with people, particularly in relation to risk factors.

In response to variation in the training available to the Health Checks workforce across London (and variation in the duration and quality of Health Checks being delivered), OHID London identified the need for an easily accessible training solution available to anyone who is involved with NHS Health Check delivery across the region. A series of videos have been developed, covering good practice in terms of a NHS Health Check conversation and assessment with a participant and combining all the different components of training necessary to strengthen the ‘influencing behaviour change’ element. A comprehensive and supportive Q & A document has also been produced to be used in tandem with the videos.

Working in conjunction with a national training provider, we devised two personas that were typical of the London population:

• Sanjeev, a 58-year-old man from South London is quite anxious, caring for a mother with dementia, who works long hours and rarely has time for himself
• and Gloria, a 51-year-old woman from East London. Gloria is a chatty social worker who is quite worried about the menopause and has problems with her joints.

These two personas were played by healthcare professionals and the videos were recorded in a clinical setting.

The videos give an insight into what a good practice health check assessment looks like.  They are intended to complement NOT replace the formal NHS Health Check training required. The videos can be watched as part of a wider training session, programme or individually. They can be watched as many times as wanted and upon completion of an evaluation form, a certificate will be available to participants.

So far, feedback on this training resources has been excellent, with people’s self-rated confidence in delivering NHS Health Checks increasing from an average of 3.5 to 4.5/5. Commissioners of NHS Health Check in London have also found the resources helpful in helping build their appreciation of a NHS Health Check in action.

Working with our London NHS Health Check Network, we’ve also recently developed a Patient Survey Template to enable Local Authorities and their providers to collect patient feedback, and to inform and drive further programme quality improvement activities. We intend to add more products to the training resource pack as we gain more feedback from users.

The training resources can all be found here:

NHS Health Check London Training Resource Pack | ADPH London

And include:

• 2 videos with different scenarios to demonstrate how to deliver a good NHS Health Check
• Recording of the launch webinar on 28 Nov 2023
• Comprehensive Q&A document
• Patient survey template

For more information about London’s NHS HC programme and training resource please contact Monica Acheampong Monica.Acheampong@dhsc.gov.uk