Pharmacy is seen as a key site for the provision of certain public health activities. The NHS operating framework identifies pharmacy's important role in improving the public's health.

The key benefit of pharmacy is seen as access. Pharmacy provides enhanced access to public health services in a number of ways.

Pharmacies are able to offer services for more hours per week than other providers, including at weekends. Services and information are often available without appointment. Importantly, pharmacy also provides access to different populations of people who do not tend to access other healthcare services, and it does so in a relatively informal setting.

Many pharmacies already deliver a range of public health activities, such as smoking cessation services, chlamydia testing and treatment, health promotion campaigns and vascular screening. In addition, there are the public health activities that are provided by pharmacies as a matter of course, such as the provision of child-proof containers and the safe disposal of medicines.

Understanding and being able to articulate the public health activities that you currently undertake will provide you with a good basis for opening discussions with public health departments with the aim of developing the public health services you provide in the future.

Understand local needs

Epidemiology is an important part of public health. It provides public health departments with the information they need to target activity in the places of highest need.

If you want to expand the public health services you provide, you need to understand local needs. This will allow you to develop appropriate services to meet these needs and to measure the outcomes and success of the services you provide.

Understanding local data is the first and most important step to developing appropriate and cost effective service propositions that will improve the health outcomes of your local population.

Gathering data

Epidemiological data is readily available on the internet. The Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO), which is part of Public Health England, collects data from across the country, analyses this and presents it on the internet in easily accessible formats. This information can be accessed here.

The data is presented in a number of formats. Health profiles provide population data for areas within a local authority's boundary that have key impacts on health status, including deprivation and ethnicity. It also provides key health measures, including number of diabetes patients, impact of alcohol, smoking status and physical activity.

This data is provided as local figures and then compared with national averages. Statistically significant differences from the national average are clearly identified to allow quick identification of areas in which to target services.

In the 'tools and data' area of the website, you can access a much wider range of more detailed data, including National General Practice Profiles. This is an important section, which provides data at individual practice and cluster of practice levels.

The General Practice Profiles provide population data (e.g. deprivation and ethnicity) as well as a number of sections that focus on different disease areas. This data is provided as a score for the practice and relative performance within the CCG/PCT and nationally. The data can be aggregated for a number of practices, which will allow you to look at data from specific localities.

The data can be looked at in relation to different measures. For example, the prevalence of COPD in a practice might be lower than the local average, although the incidence of admissions from COPD might be in line with the local average. This could suggest a problem, with admissions per COPD patient higher than the local average.

One solution could be for pharmacies to provide information to COPD patients about managing exacerbations. This could also lead to a specific PGD-focused service offering a recovery treatment from the pharmacy to appropriate patients when needed. It is also possible to drill into more detailed data on specific disease states to help you to target service development more effectively.