Is reading a client’s recovery score within your scope?
Every professional body publishes a scope of practice. Nearly all of them talk about blood tests and say nothing about sleep scores, readiness or HRV. That silence is why practitioners keep asking the question in public and getting no answer.
- The hard prohibitions are consistent: do not diagnose, do not interpret medical data, do not prescribe.
- "Interpret" is the word that bites. It is defined as explaining what a result means.
- Scope documents address labs, not wearables. The principle still transfers.
- The safe framing is to read the data with the client, to support their own goals — not to make decisions for them.
Not legal advice. This is a summary for someone making a decision without a lawyer in the room. Your own counsel and your regulator have the final word.
| Body | The line | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| NBHWC | Coaches "do not diagnose, interpret medical data, prescribe or de-prescribe" | Medical data generally. Does not name wearables |
| FMCA | Not within scope to "order or interpret labs" | Labs specifically |
| BANT | Consent required under UK GDPR to access and store CGM data; practitioners do not work with CGMs "in a medical capacity" | The closest UK precedent for device data |
| CIMSPA-aligned guidance | PTs must not diagnose injuries, illnesses or conditions | Clinical judgement |
BANT’s CGM guidance is the most useful of the four, because a continuous glucose monitor is a device producing a stream of numbers about a client. Its answer is consent first, and no medical capacity.
A Mayo Clinic continuing-education course on wearables in coaching puts it in one line worth borrowing: interpret wearable data with clients to support self-discovery, insight and values-based goal setting, rather than prescriptive decisions.
- "Your sleep has moved later three weeks running. What changed?"
- Compare a client only against their own earlier readings
- Refer on when something persists, and record that you did
- Say at the start that this is coaching, not medical care
- "Your HRV suggests you might have..." — that is diagnosis
- Compare one client’s score to another’s
- Advise on medication or dosage from a reading
- Treat a consumer device reading as diagnostic
Scores are not comparable across brands. HRV is measured as SDNN on some devices and RMSSD on others — the same number on two devices does not mean the same thing. One brand computes it during deep sleep, another averages five-minute samples across the whole night.
So the only defensible reading is a person against their own baseline. Which happens to be the reading that stays inside scope.
A reading that stays out of its usual range for more than two or three weeks, or comes with symptoms, is a conversation for a doctor. Say that to clients at the start and it never has to be said awkwardly later.
Is looking at a readiness score "interpreting medical data"?
A consumer wearable is not a medical device and its scores are not diagnostic, so the usual reading is no. The safer practice is still to discuss it with the client rather than pronounce on it, and to refer on when something persists.
Can I use device data to set training load?
Adjusting training, habits or nutrition from trend data is coaching. Detecting, monitoring or managing a condition is not.
Does my insurer care?
Ask them. Scope and indemnity are usually tied together, and wearable data is new enough that it is worth a direct question rather than an assumption.