Pharmacy Complete

Pharmacy consultancy

Healthy Living Pharmacy News

We've put all of our healthy living pharmacy news in one place so that you can stay in touch with the latest information and implement new healthy living activities.

Healthy Living Pharmacy and the NHS Ten Year Plan

It is excellent news that we now have 9436 (88%) pharmacies in England declared as Healthy Living Pharmacies, this represents an additional 5% on the November 2017 declaration. For these pharmacies the key will be ensuring that all the HLP criteria continue to be met in order to maintain the status and thus be able to promote the quality mark.

Becoming an accredited HLP is just the beginning, its what HLPs then do differently, bigger and better that will define and differentiate them. This will then help them realise the benefits of the improved ethos, engagement, capability and activity that comes with doing the right things with the right people.

The next step is building on that capability and activity for a healthier future for their community and their pharmacy. Pharmacy Complete have a range of resources and courses to support this. Developing and demonstrating this capability and commitment should have its own benefits through increased productivity and delivery of both private and commissioned health promotion, prevention and protection services.

What we need to see now is the NHS and Public Health, at both national and local level, recognising the HLP asset to deliver against the Staying Healthy and other objectives within the recent NHS Plan consultation to reduce health inequalities and improve the health of the population. Good to see some early signs of engagement from PSNC and RPS with this consultation which requires new thinking focussed on NHS and public health needs both now and in the future.

Health Campaigns

Health promotion campaigns are a key element of a Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP). Beyond simply complying with the HLP criteria, health promotions that have been well run increase engagement with your customers and patients and promote your pharmacy to your community.

Some campaign topics materials may be sourced locally or nationally but this still requires some effort, e.g. the Stoptober campaign materials this year need to be ordered by pharmacies rather than being sent automatically; this also applies to flu.

Pharmacy Complete have launched a health campaign subscription service with six campaigns over 12 months aligned to national priorities but not duplicating what the NHS or Public Health may directly provide. This ensures that you meet the minimum criteria but leaves plenty of room for any national campaigns and local flexibility and innovation.

In the packs we provide posters and information materials to increase awareness of the health benefits of a key health issue. We include information to give the team knowledge and guidance on how they can help support people to reduce their health risks. Depending on the topic, we also provide something a bit different, e.g. cards or stickers, to help with customer engagement plus some tips on running effective health campaigns and other sources of information.

Many HLPs struggle to find reliable sources of quality materials and may waste a lot of time, effort and money in doing so or simply give up and risk being non-compliant with the criteria.

So why not sort it and  sign up now.

NICE Guidance on promoting health and wellbeing in Community Pharmacies

NICE have launched this guidance – Community Pharmacies: promoting health and wellbeing.

It is important that pharmacy owners, pharmacists and pharmacy teams, particularly Health Champions, and local commissioners of both health and wellbeing services understand what the recommendations are and what this means for them.

Overview

This guideline covers how community pharmacies can help maintain and improve people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing, including people with a long-term condition. It aims to encourage more people to use community pharmacies by integrating them within existing health and care pathways and ensuring they offer standard services and a consistent approach. It requires a collaborative approach from individual pharmacies and their representatives, local authorities and other commissioners.

Summary of key recommendations

  1. Local commissioners, Health & Wellbeing Boards, community pharmacies and their representatives (e.g. LPCs) should work to integrate community pharmacy into existing care and referral pathways as health and wellbeing hubs.
  2. Interventions should be focused on local needs, be consistently of high quality, tailored to the individual, use professionally produced support materials and pharmacy team members delivering them should have the right skills and knowledge, e.g. in line with NICE guidance on behaviour change.
  3. Local commissioners should promote community pharmacy as an integral part of NHS primary care services.
  4. Community pharmacies should publicise their skills and services to increase the public’s knowledge and confidence in those services.
  5. Community pharmacies should proactively seek opportunities to promote people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing. This includes raising awareness, providing information, advice and support, and signposting or referral to and from other services. This could happen when responding to requests for advice, selling OTC medicines or supplying prescription medicines and supporting a patient with a long-term condition such as diabetes or hypertension. The brief interventions could include the self-management of mild to moderate back pain, physical activity, smoking, healthy weight and diet, and alcohol consumption. A minimum dataset should be used to capture these interventions and referrals.

What does this mean for community pharmacies?

We believe that the guidance is a very good fit with the objectives and ethos of the Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP) model which we have supported since its conception. So those pharmacies that are already accredited HLPs and maintained their capability and activity in line with the HLP Criteria will be well placed to meet most or all of these recommendations.

At Pharmacy Complete we have gone beyond the core HLP criteria with our award-winning Health Champion development programme that we have created for pharmacy teams which includes our Knowledge into Action workshop, the RSPH Applied award in Health Improvement and the Supporting Behaviour Change Level 2 award plus Making Every Contact Count (MECC). We have also developed our Health Campaign service which uses only evidence-based, professional materials plus a topic knowledge piece and hints and tips to support the provision of the required minimum of six campaigns a year.

There will undoubtedly be some work for local public health, NHS and CCG commissioners to do on the integration and publicity recommendations; LPCs and Local Healthwatch should be holding them to account on this.

Health Profiles Update

The 2018 Local Authority Health Profile pdfs have been released. It is a requirement for accredited HLPs to have up-to-date- knowledge of local health needs and priorities and this tool is one of the best ways to achieve that alongside the local Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA).

Understanding local needs will allow HLPs to focus their health promotion zone, health campaigns and health and wellbeing services to support the needs of their local communities and local commissioners. To support you in this we have developed our Championing Health Cards.

Use the ‘Find your Health Profile’ search facility on the Local Authority Health Profiles online tool to download the pdf report for a specific Local Authority.