Welsh pharmacies are to offer patients free diabetes and stroke risk assessments next month, in a campaign aimed at identifying the one in 10 people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes or having a stroke.

The One in Ten campaign – which will be run by Diabetes UK Cymru, the Stroke Association, Public Health Wales (PHW) and Community Pharmacy Wales (CPW) in association with the seven local health boards – will be providing free risk assessments to patients at every Welsh pharmacy for two weeks from September 3. Patients found to be at risk will either be given referral letters to their GPs or advised to mention their status to their doctor.

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	CPW chief executive Russell Goodway said the campaign would enable the Welsh government to "use the advantages of the pharmacy network to assist with the delivery of its programme". "Community pharmacies are ideally placed to take public health messages to the 50,000 people a day who visit their local pharmacy whether they are well or ill," he said.

And Diabetes UK Cymru director Dai Williams told C+D that the charity was "delighted" to be working with community pharmacy to help deliver what it described as an "important campaign". "Pharmacists' hard work at the grassroots level will help ensure that thousands of people get accurate information and advice on their risk of stroke and diabetes," he said.

The One in Ten campaign follows a similar two-week initiative last year that focused solely on diabetes, in which Welsh pharmacies identified nearly 1,500 people at high risk of the condition. The campaign is one of the six contractual public health campaigns that run annually in community pharmacies in Wales.

NPA representational manager for Wales Steve Simmonds said the latest initiative "made the most out of pharmacy's attributes and could help save lives".