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Healthy Living Pharmacies progress after national summit
Healthy Living Pharmacies (HLPs) took a significant step forward this week, with pharmacy bodies agreeing a coordinated plan of action at a national summit.
Healthy Living Pharmacies are making a real difference to the health and wellbeing of people in Portsmouth, by consistently delivering a range of high-quality public health services such as stopping smoking, weight loss, the treatment of minor ailments, contraception and sexual health and advice on medicines. Other areas across England are now looking to replicate these outcomes.
The Government in its Healthy Lives Healthy People white paper recently described pharmacy as “a valuable and trusted public health resource.” With millions of direct contacts with the public each day, community pharmacy teams have great potential to improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities on a national basis. The NHS Operating Framework for 2011/12 encourages NHS organisations to maintain and develop pharmaceutical services, as the evidence for pharmacy’s contribution to public health grows.
Recognising that HLPs can be both an inspiration and a template for pharmacy public health development, the pharmacy bodies committed to facilitate a number of pathfinder sites across England, supporting the identification, collation and interpretation of evidence. Together, the group agreed that local and national leadership would be critical to success and that pharmacy teams would need support to put in place the enablers of workforce development and engagement with others. Furthermore, the bodies will work together to optimise their resources and identify what, in detail, can be done to encourage wider uptake of the HLP concept and who will do what.
The organisations represented at the meeting were: Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE),Company Chemists Association (CCA), National Pharmacy Association (NPA), Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC), Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), NHS Employers and the Department of Health.
Posted 8 February 2011