5. Public Health

Update 07/12/2022

Each year pharmacies are required to participate in up to six public health campaigns at the request of NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I). This involves the display and distribution of leaflets provided by NHSE&I,.

In addition, pharmacies are required to undertake prescription-linked interventions on major areas of public health concern, such as encouraging smoking cessation. The requirements are set out in the service specification.

In recent years, PSNC (now known as Community Pharmacy England) has agreed with NHSE&I to set the six campaign topics at a national level so that all community pharmacy contractors participate in the same campaigns, creating consistency and increasing accessibility to resources.

It has been agreed that the campaign topics should, wherever possible, support NHSE&I’s operational and public health priorities, such as winter pressures, smoking, obesity and alcohol.