Health coaching and cancer

Dr Penny Kechagioglou

MBBS, MRCP, CCT (Clin Onc), MPH, MBA, DBA, FMLM, AFMCP

Dr Penny Kechagioglou is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist, the Chief Clinical Information Officer and Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire. She specialises in the treatment of Breast Cancer with particular interest in the integration between lifestyle and traditional medicine. Her non-clinical research interest is in Innovation, Leadership and Digital Transformation and she has completed a Doctorate degree in Leadership and Innovation with Warwick Business School. Penny is a qualified Functional Medicine Coach and works as a Holistic doctor and Health Coach at the National Centre for Integrative Medicine in Bristol. She has been trained in Applied Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice with the Institute of Functional Medicine in USA, is a Board Trustee member at Penny Brohn UK and CoppaFeel UK cancer charities and a Medical supporter for the Yes to Life cancer charity.

Izabella Natrins

CEO, UK & International Health Coaching Association, Health Research Psychologist, UKIHCA Health Coach

Izabella continues to build the very first, pioneering professional body for Health Coaching in the world. Standing for professionalism, community and enterprise she is committed to spreading the word that skilled, professional health coaches are not only changing lives, but that a health coaching approach transforms health professionals’ practice and will transform healthcare delivery systems– nationally and globally.

As a former Health Research Psychologist and a qualified Nutrition & Lifestyle Medicine Health Coach, Izabella takes a whole-health perspective on the bio-psycho-emotional-social-spiritual-environmental influences that make up an individual’s unique lived experience.

With over 30 years’ experience in the health, wellness and executive management space, her roles have included: Health Research Psychologist in Public Health Medicine, NHS/Department of Health Programme Manager and Managing Director of a Management & Organisational Development Consultancy. She is the author of THE REAL FOOD SOLUTION in support of the British Association of Holistic Medicine and Healthcare’s (BHMA) Real Food Campaign UK.

Maintaining good health and prioritising wellbeing are both essential elements for a lengthy and fulfilling life. 

The rise of chronic illness and cancer in the UK and globally is a sign that our populations are becoming sicker and not healthier. Our lifestyle habits contribute to the majority of instances of chronic illness, whilst 1 in 4 cancers are due to our lifestyle choices alone. 

Coaching people to better health should not be a commodity. There is a need for actively promoting and rewarding health-promoting lifestyle behaviours in our societies through small, daily changes, whether this means more exercise, establishing a routine for quality sleep, reducing fat and processed food intake, maintaining a healthy weight or minimising exposure to environmental toxins including stressful triggers. If we all collectively strive to improve our lifestyle habits gradually, steadily and sustainably, the health and the wealth of our nation will improve. 

However changing the habits of a lifetime can be challenging and people need support. Health coaching is the discipline which aims at creating health in a proactive way, through self-empowering people, accountability and education, unlike clinical practice which aims at treating disease, without routinely addressing its root cause, often - our ‘lifestyle’ choices. 

Integrating well-trained health coaches into our healthcare system, working collaboratively with clinicians and promoting education and health literacy to communities, could be the solution to the chronic illness and cancer epidemic. In addition, it would help contain the significant cost of chronic illness, through the reduction of expensive drug use and unnecessary hospital admissions or primary care visits. Coaching our healthcare workforce to better health will improve health and wellbeing and sustain healthcare for years to come.

As our NHS system is now mostly digitised, health coaching can be accessed more routinely and easily, with health coaching delivered online with more online interactive information and gamification activities being available which reward and motivate people to change and sustain change. Lifestyle habit changes can be recorded and tracked digitally, acting as nudges for continuous health promotion, strongly supported by the human-human interaction, one-to-one or in groups, with a health coach.

The evidence for health coaching benefits for individuals and organisations is now overwhelming and cannot be ignored. The upcoming BSIO webinar is an opportunity for people to hear about what health coaching is, its impact in terms of supporting people in their journey to lifestyle change and becoming more resilient physically and mentally and models of care that integrate health coaching.