Community Pharmacys
The National Institute for Health & Care Excellence have published their recommendations on how a community pharmacy can promote health and wellbeing.
The guideline recommends Creating a system where community pharmacies are health and wellbeing hubs in their local community with overarching principles of good practice for community pharmacy teams, including:
- Using information, resources and support aids available from statutory, community and voluntary sector organisations (for example, Healthwatch and Public Health England)
- Addressing health inequalities by working with other agencies to identify under-served groups
- Ensuring that local commissioners make it clear that community pharmacies are an integral part of NHS primary care services
- Ensuring that the public have information about the skills and competencies of staff at a particular local pharmacy
- Raising awareness through pharmacy campaigns and providing health information to people using the pharmacy
- Offering advice and education to people using the pharmacy as opportunities arise
- Offering support to people using the pharmacy to help them change behaviours to improve their health and wellbeing
- Establishing a formal referral process with other pharmacies and service providers, including GP services and those offered by local authorities and those in the community and voluntary sectors
For more information you can read the full recommendations on NICE website
