Competency in Health Check Assessments (COCHA)

Course overview

The five-day COCHA training will develop the following skills:

• Understanding the NHS Health Check
• Professional behaviour
• History taking
• Risk assessment
• Interpreting results
• Measurements using body fluids
• Interpreting result
• Basic clinical skills
• Raising dementia awareness
• Communication with clients (promote behaviour change) and health professionals

Health Check measures will include: BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol, CVD risk score, blood glucose, pulmonary function and blood oxygen.

Learning outcomes and aims

On successful completion of this module a student will be able to:

1. Describe the processes involved in the recording, storage and analysis of client’s data, including the role of information governance and the need to obtain client consent to the intervention and to sharing of data.
2. Elicit a client’s history and communicate this effectively, through written and verbal means.
3. Demonstrate the required practical skills and critical decision-making process necessary to perform a competent health check and communicate the findings effectively to the client, and where appropriate to other health professionals, through written and verbal means.
4. Communicate with clients professionally to provide reassurance, support and signposting. Where appropriate communicate using scientific/medical language accurately for lay participants.
5. Develop and maintain strategies focused on behaviour change, including motivational interviewing techniques to promote client engagement and sustainable outcomes.
6. Critically analyse and reflect on practical procedures to demonstrate emergence of the professional attitudes and skills.

Entry requirements

The CPD is open to individuals with qualifications such as gym instructor, personal trainer or those with a lifestyle management qualification. Other cases will be considered on an individual basis.