The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7249 p676
17 May 2003

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New pharmacy clinic to tackle obesity

A pharmacist-run clinic to manage obesity and reduce heart disease risk has been set up at Elora Chemist in South Benfleet, Essex.

Heidi Wright, manager of Essex Community Pharmacy Practice Development Unit, said: “The health improvement clinic’s aim is to help people who are overweight or obese, but it has a knock-on effect on coronary heart disease and diabetes.”

Patients are seen at the clinic once a month for six months by a specially trained pharmacist. The initial assessment takes about an hour and involves measuring weight and waist circumference, calculating body mass index, and testing blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose levels. Pharmacists use this information, along with questions about smoking, family history and diet, to conduct a risk assessment.

Patients are then given advice about diet, including information on food labels, and a copy of the risk assessment. They are asked to keep a food diary for the first month in the programme. The progress of weight loss is measured at subsequent appointments, with the other clinical measurements being taken every few months. The clinic is run on Saturday mornings at a new consulting room within the pharmacy. Patients are seen by appointment only.

Bharat Patel, pharmacist at Elora, said: “We aim to educate, advise and motivate individuals as they work towards a healthier lifestyle.”

The scheme has been supported by Roche and Pfizer, which have provided some equipment. In addition, patients are charged £5 for each appointment. Ms Wright hopes that funding will be secured from the local primary care trust in the future. “The PCT has been supportive of the scheme in theory,” she said. “We plan to evaluate it after six months and then take these data to the PCT to ask for funding.” But patient response so far has been good. “One patient told me he thought it was a good idea. It had saved him going to his doctor and in any case he felt his doctor did not have enough time to go through the information in such depth.”

This week, Roche launched a template patient group direction for its anti-obesity drug orlistat (Xenical). The company says that it envisages the PGD being used in pharmacy-based weight management services. The PGD is supported by Ms Wright, who said that having having a PGD at the obesity management clinic in Essex would be beneficial. “It is definitely something we will look at introducing in the future.”

The template PGD is available at www.groupprotocols.org.uk. Roche has also developed a CD-ROM resource kit for pharmacists that can be obtained by e-mail from medinfo.uk@roche.com quoting “weight management CD-ROM” in the subject field.