Public Health

New resources to support public health through pharmacy

17 March 2010

 A new set of resources has been published to help pharmacist and their teams give general health advice and offer brief opportunistic advice to members of the public about their sexual and mental health.

The online version is available on the PharmacyHealthLink website.

Printed copies will be sent to all community and hospital pharmacies in England in the next two weeks.

The healthy lifestyle resources sent to pharmacies in 2007 have also been updated and will be distributed.

They are the latest additions to the portfolio of resources that pharmacists should already have on healthy living and sustainable development.

Pharmacies - ideal locations for interventions Because of pharmacy's accessibility, they are ideally placed to help and advise people on the sensitive but fundamental areas of sexual health.
Young people especially like the anonymity and improved access that community pharmacies provide.

Similarly, the less formal and intimidating surroundings of a pharmacy also offer a real opportunity for pharmacists to help improve people's mental well-being. Engaging in the mental well-being agenda may not be very easy for some pharmacy teams to deal with, but pharmacies provide an ideal location to identify some of the problems people with mental health problems may be experiencing.
Further information The charity, PharmacyHealthLink, was commissioned to develop these materials on behalf of the Department of Health.

If you would like further copies of the resources, you can email them at info@phlink.org.uk or call 020 7291 8372. You may have to pay for duplicate copies

New resource published for Health Trainers in pharmacy

The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has developed a resource that highlights the opportunities for pharmacy staff to become Health Trainers and Health Trainer Champions.  Click here for more information.