Ollie Hart, a community focused vision of health and wellbeing The Compassionate Leadership Interview

Ollie Hart is a GP at Sloan Medical Centre Sheffield, Director of Peak Health Coaching, Clinical Commissioning Lead, social media influencer, and innovation leader in healthcare and wellness.
His vision for the future of health and wellness in the UK involves inviting the individual and their community to take a more prominent role, as opposed to the healthcare system. All the research suggests that the impact of the system, based on a ‘medicalised model’ is far less than was imagined. The behaviour of the individual and the support provided to them by their community is the dominant factor in their health and wellbeing.
He believes the pandemic has demonstrated that alternative ways of doing things can be better: video appointments and the vaccine delivery model, involving collaboration between clinicians, volunteers and the community, are two examples.
Over time during his practice as a GP, Ollie discovered that the medical interventions he prescribed were often less effective than when he supported people in understanding their condition, and in adopting healthy behaviours. He learnt a lot of his health coaching skills in a pain clinic, where the drug treatment options were limited. He finds having good therapeutic relationships “recharging,” for him as well as his patients.
He set up Peak Health Coaching to support clinicians in health coaching, patient activation measurement (PAM), and social prescribing. Patient activation is about understanding where a patient is on their journey to empowerment, and tailoring their coaching and treatment accordingly. Social prescribing in its simplest form helps connect people to organisations within their community that might help them to initiate or sustain good behaviours. In a wider context, it is about providing equitable access and support to all members of a community.
General practice is “constantly redefining itself. We respond to need, and to changes in the evidence base.” He says “in our essence we are community-based organisations.” Link workers, health coaches, and care coordinators are all part of the current wave of change. Ollie believes GPs with health coaching knowledge are in a position to make a judgement call on the most beneficial use of their time with a particular patient, whether that is in understanding their context better, or whether it is in discussing a prescription for a new medication. Good health coaching can create time, by starting a patient on a path that he might then pursue outside of the consultation.
Ollie believes that health coaching can reduce health inequalities, but only if it is done with skilful consideration of the individual. If executed clumsily it can overwhelm the patient. He contends that there are no cultural barriers to health coaching, but the socio-economic circumstances of any community, irrespective of ethnicity, need to be carefully considered in its deployment.
Ollie was instrumental in setting up the Graves Park Park Run. He feels it is a great example of an initiative that once executed with skill and imagination takes on a life of its own. He says “what they tuned into in Park Run was that it was not just about the running and the exercise, it was about the connection and … the common purpose.”
Ollie says that the NHS and the current experiment in personalised care – the NHS has a target of recruiting 1,000 new link workers by the end of the 2021 – is a great example of learning by doing, somewhat similar to Park Run. He maintains that to promote an environment of innovation there has to be a degree of tolerance of risk, and a preparedness to accept failure. And whilst there has to be some acknowledgement of the potential downsides, if the system doesn’t innovate it misses the opportunity of improved approaches that may save lives.
Through his appearances on radio and television, and also on social media, Ollie is influencing the direction of the NHS and...