Health profiles of England

Public Health England have recently released a report incorporating data and knowledge on the health of the population in England in 2017.

The report contains seven chapters:

1. Healthy life expectancy
2. Major causes of death
3. Trends in behavioural risk factors
4. European comparisons
5. Health inequalities
6. Social determinants of health
7. Emerging health protection issues

Public Health England have also created a blog on the 10 facts that sum up our nation’s health.

These are all relevant to community pharmacies, particularly those aspiring to make the most of their Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP) status and seek out opportunities to make every contact count to improve the health and wellbeing of their community.

Part of becoming an HLP is to understand the health needs of their local population and Health Champions should be focusing their health promotion campaigns on those local priorities. Upskilling the whole pharmacy team on these issues is critical and Pharmacy Complete has a series of courses and resources to support this.

These priorities are also the issues that Local Pharmaceutical Committees and pharmacy contractors should be discussing with local health and public health commissioners and exploring where and how pharmacy can be part of the solution to resolving these inequalities.