Pharmacy cuts hospitalisations

A UK campaign encouraging people to make pharmacy their first point of call for healthcare has kept almost 14,000 people out of hospitals over a three month period, Britain’s minister for the pharmacy sector has claimed.

The government evaluation of the Stay Well Pharmacy campaign, which ran for three months from Feb 2018, showed that 6,016 fewer patients were admitted to accident and emergency (A&E) during the period, while 5,747 fewer people were admitted to emergency rooms in the three months after the campaign had concluded.

According to the Pharmaceutical Journal, the Stay Well Pharmacy campaign specifically targeted parents and carers of young children under the age of five years.

It aimed to change behaviour by consumers, following research by NHS England which found only one in five adults would consider visiting their pharmacy first for help for a minor health concern.

That figure dropped to just 6% for parents of young children, of whom 35% said they would first opt for an appointment with their GP, while 5% said they would take their child straight to hospital as their first port of call.

Stay Well Pharmacy aimed to make the best use of the clinical expertise of community pharmacists while relieving some of the pressure on GPs and emergency departments and conveying the message that “pharmacists are well trained to spot a ‘minor illness’ that may be more serious and to help their patients get the help they need quickly”.

Pharmacy Minister Steve Brine said the government evaluation showed the program had exceeded expectations by producing 31% unprompted awareness of pharmacies as an option for minor health concerns.