Pharmacies' public health potential to be assessed

By Tom Moberly, 05 August 2011

Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP) pathfinder sites will be expected to inform the future direction of travel for community pharmacy. They will help support lifestyle interventions and build an evidence base for pharmacy?s contribution to public health.

The HLP project is for at least 100 community pharmacies to become HLPs by the end of March 2012. The concept was developed by NHS Portsmouth where it has been shown to raise quality and productivity of pharmacy services and to improve access to health services.

Through HLPs in Portsmouth, over 1000 patients have now received a targeted Medicine Use Review for their asthma or COPD with 48% seen again having shown an improvement in their condition.

Community pharmacies in Portsmouth have again exceeded the PCT stop smoking quit target by 138% achieving 664 quits at four weeks for the year 2010/11.

Early evaluation results indicate that a person walking into an HLP in Portsmouth is twice as likely to set a quit date and give up compared to a person walking into a pharmacy which is not an HLP.

Deborah Evans, HLP national project lead, said her team had been ?bowled over? by the quality of applications from pharmacies interested in taking part in the project.

She added: ?The HLP concept has gone from strength to strength since its launch in 2009 and these pathfinder sites will bring the benefits of high-quality public health services to a much wider audience.?

The following PCT areas have been selected to become HLP pathfinder sites:

• NHS Portsmouth
• Heart of Birmingham PCT
• NHS Isle of Wight
• South Essex PCT cluster (South West and South East Essex)
• NHS Bucks and NHS Milton Keynes
• Blackburn with Darwen TCTP and East Lancashire
• Brighton & Hove City PCT, East Sussex Downs and Weald PCT� and Hastings and Rother PCT
• NHS Dudley
• Shropshire PCT and NHS Telford
• NHS Plymouth
• NHS Ashton, Leigh & Wigan
• South Staffordshire PCT
• North Staffordshire PCT and NHS Stoke on Trent
• NHS Lambeth
• NHS Hull and NHS East Riding of Yorkshire
• NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney
• NHS West Kent
• Gateshead PCT, South Tyneside PCT and Sunderland teaching PCT
• NHS Sheffield
• NHS Dorset

Source: http://www.gponline.com/channel/news/article/1083623/pharmacies-public-health-potential-assessed/

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