Prevention green paper says pharmacies will be supported to help improve the nation’s health & wellbeing

25 Jul 2019

The Department of Health and Social Care has published its long awaited green paper on public health: Advancing our Health – Prevention in the 2020s.

With the launch of the green paper, DHSC is seeking views on proposals to tackle the causes of preventable ill health in England.

It outlines actions on

  • the environment in which people live
  • the choices people make
  • the services people receive

The government says it intends to:

  • Embed genomics in routine healthcare
  • Review the NHS Health Check and set out a bold future vision of NHS screening
  • Launch phase one of a ‘Predictive Prevention’ (data driven) work programme from Public Health England

The NPA briefed the policy team preparing this document, which also talks about expanding the role of community pharmacists to “support more people in the community to manage and improve their health and wellbeing”.  It continues, “We will commission more services from community pharmacies and support them to become further integrated into local NHS provider networks.”

The changes to the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework in England announced in July include a pipeline of prevention-focused pharmacy based services, including helping to identify and refer patients with unidentified health conditions such as heart disease. Over the course of the settlement period all pharmacies in England will become Healthy Living Pharmacies which will require them to have trained health champions on site.

Read the green paper in full here.

The green paper is a consultation open until Wednesday 16th October 2019.

For more information please email Helga Mangion at independentsvoice@npa.co.uk