Community pharmacies are well placed to have a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of the communities they serve. Indeed, they are often referred to as the health and wellbeing hub or the front desk of the NHS.

Essential Service 4 within the English Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework requires a pharmacy to provide opportunistic healthy lifestyle advice and public health advice to patients receiving prescriptions who have conditions such as diabetes or are at risk of coronary heart disease, especially those with high blood pressure, and to patients who smoke or are overweight.

Pharmacies are also required to proactively participate in national or local campaigns to promote public health messages to visitors to the pharmacy during up to six specific targeted campaign periods through advice and in-store displays. The advice will be given verbally, but may be backed up by the provision of leaflets and a referral to another source of advice or assistance. A record of the advice given should be made on the patient’s pharmacy record.

The local NHS or public health service should determine the topics of the campaigns and provide any appropriate support, for example briefing packs, patient literature and/or signposting to resources to support campaign messages. In many parts of the country, this support has reduced or ceased since the NHS reorganisation, but is still active in some areas.

The Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP) quality criteria, which form part of the Quality Payments scheme, require that the pharmacy must have a health promotion zone and the pharmacy team should be aware of local health needs, must be actively involved in six public health campaigns and proactively provide advice on sensitive public health issues. The Health Champion in an HLP would normally lead on this activity, but it requires the whole team to live and breathe a healthy living ethos.