Community pharmacists will receive support to use every opportunity to promote healthy lifestyle and smoking cessation, the Welsh government announced this week as part of a campaign to tackle heart disease.

Pharmacy as well as GPs and practice nurses would be supported to ensure patients received testing and treatment for risk factors including high blood pressure and cholesterol, the Welsh government said in its three-year plan for heart disease released on Wednesday (May 7).

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	The plan did not specify how pharmacists would receive the support, but health minister Mark Drakeford said he wanted to ensure those affected by heart disease have "timely intervention access to high quality services, irrespective of where they live and whether these services are delivered through hospitals or in the community".

The plan aims to help local health boards deliver coordinated services for patients and meet the standards set out in the Welsh government's Cardiac Disease National Service Framework for tackling heart disease by 2016.

The report cited the latest figures from the British Heart Foundation, which showed that death rates from coronary heart disease in Wales remain 15 per cent higher than those in England, despite dropping over the past 30 years.

According to the latest Welsh Health Survey carried out by the government in 2011, 57 per cent of adults and 35 per cent of children were overweight or obese.

NPA chief executive Mike Holden said this week that local health boards and trusts should take pharmacies into account when commissioning new services to tackle heart disease.

"An expanded role for community pharmacy in the prevention and ongoing support for people with heart disease would significantly enhance NHS provision for this group," he said.