Pharmacies are at the heart of communities and are a key source of health care and advice. Cutting funding at a time when the NHS is trying to find different and more cost effective care seems counter intuitive. If the NHS is to find ways of controlling the continuing growth in expenditure it needs to look at how it can increase prevention of illness and increase and improve health and wellbeing. We need to create a wellbeing service rather than the illness service that we currently have.
Community pharmacies see approximately 1.6 million people every day. A significant part of this number is the apparently well. In many cases, people are not exhibiting signs of illness but their wellbeing could be better.
If we could help people to maintain a healthy weight we reduce the risk of diabetes. If we help people to think about the alcohol they consume we can reduce the risk of liver damage and certain cancers. If we help people to quit smoking we reduce the risk of many different illnesses. If we help people to have the right blood pressure we reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks. If more vulnerable people have flu vaccinations, we can reduce their risk of serious complications from the disease.
Unless we help people to look after their wellbeing and provide them with the support and information to understand how they can improve their own health, the burden on the NHS will only grow. Community pharmacy provides the opportunity to have a huge impact on improving health and wellbeing. However, if pharmacies are forced to close, or try to provide these services with less staff because there isn’t sufficient income to employ more people, the capacity to do any of these things disappear.
We need to recognise that pharmacies are the heartbeat of communities and it is only by looking at how they can be better utilised to improve health and wellbeing that we can help the NHS to create a sustainable future. We risk all of this with the current reductions in funding by focussing on cost rather than value. Pharmacies are valuable assets that we should nurture.
About the author
Professor Ash Soni OBE FFRPS FRPharmS, in his role as a member of the RPS English Pharmacy Board
