Community pharmacies are “very keen” and have an “appetite” to be involved in obesity care, said a consultant pharmacist speaking at a Westminster Conference on the next steps for obesity policy, prevention and care in England on May 15.
Hannah Beba, who works for the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, said pharmacies needed to take a “twofold” approach in preparing the workforce to help tackle obesity and that pharmacies should get ready “to do some of the delivery of weight management medications in the future”.
Preventative care
Pharmacies should also take on “some of this day to day primary care work”, with tests that are “safe and easy to do”.
These include hypertension management, such as titration or lipid testing.
Beba said these medical checks were “bread and butter” for a pharmacist and that pharmacies are “very good at managing” these “risk factors and comorbidities”.
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She also highlighted the convenience of community pharmacies, saying a patient can “nip into a community pharmacy to get hypertension medicine titrated at whatever time”, which creates greater access to care for “working people” and “our communities”.
“We did a nice piece of engagement work with community pharmacies to understand their barriers and facilitators, around working with obesity care, and there’s definitely an appetite to do it,” she said.
“The things they want to see to support them are education and competence to be built into that through frameworks.”
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It follows a community pharmacy cholesterol testing pilot in north east London, which was described as being “highly valuable”.
The pharmacies were “equipped with lipid testing devices and trained to conduct non-fasting lipid testing”, with Community Pharmacy England describing the pilot as showing “significant potential”.
In March, a “point of care NTproBNP blood testing” pilot which helped to identify the early signs of “suspected heart failure” was launched in Lower House Lane pharmacy in Liverpool.
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The scheme was “designed to accelerate the early detection of heart failure and reduce health inequalities across the city”.
Boots also announced an expanded in-person weight loss service in March. Superintendent pharmacist Claire Nevinson said this “type of holistic preventative service” is “perfectly placed” in community pharmacies.
