The National Pharmaceutical Association's professional development team has produced five new health improvement frameworks for pharmacy use.
The association says that the frameworks, which focus on the Government's main health improvement target areas - smoking, cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke, mental health, and accidents - have been designed to help community pharmacists develop responses to local health improvement plans.
The NPA's head of professional development (Mrs Georgina Craig) told The Journal on November 10: "We began work on these frameworks shortly after local health care consortia, local health groups and primary care groups began to emerge so that pharmacists could contribute in a meaningful way to local strategy development."
She said that frameworks had been designed so that they were not only flexible enough to be adapted to local needs, but also provided the NPA's pharmacist members with all the evidence of good practice and relevant key policy documents that were available.
Each framework document contains guidance on how it should be used, a summary of its policy content, detailed descriptions and summaries of service development options, examples of good practice and supporting evidence, performance indicators and supporting resources, including recommended background reading, web sites and relevant patient groups.
Copies of the frameworks are available free of charge from the NPA's professional development department on 01727 858687, extension 217, 339 or 293. They can also be provided in electronic form.
E-mail requests can be sent to g.craig@npa.co.uk.