The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7322 p615
23 October 2004

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Build links with local community

The 2004 British Pharmaceutical Conference and Exhibition “Medicines: from cell to society” took place at Manchester International Convention Centre from 27–29 September

BPC 2004 summary

Building links with local communities and tailoring services to meet local needs are important factors in the success of community pharmacy public health initiatives, according to Terry Maguire, vice-chairman of the charity PharmacyHealthLink. “The challenge is to get the message over to the public and to make services responsive to public needs,” he said.

Dr Maguire described an initiative that he had been involved with in Belfast — the Healthy Weight Challenge. It was a joint initiative between Dr Maguire’s pharmacy and a local women’s group. Using a similar approach to the cycle of change in smoking cessation, the initiative allowed women to set their own targets for weight loss and gave them access to a pharmacist for information and support.

Dr Maguire was adamant that public health could not be “bolted on” as a new issue but had to be integrated into the way pharmacy is already practised.

Hemant Patel, Vice-President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, urged pharmacists to become more involved in community development and said that he hoped there would be opportunities elsewhere in the UK to imitate the initiatives set up in Northern Ireland. “We have the opportunity to reposition community pharmacy so it is a community development resource,” he said.