Guidance
This guideline covers how community pharmacies can help maintain and improve people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing, including people with a long-term condition. It aims to encourage more people to use community pharmacies by integrating them within existing health and care pathways and ensuring they offer standard services and a consistent approach. It requires a collaborative approach from individual pharmacies and their representatives, local authorities and other commissioners.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
- health and wellbeing hubs
- overarching principles of good practice
- awareness raising and providing information
- advice and education
- behavioural support
- referrals and signposting
Who is it for?
- Community pharmacies, local pharmaceutical committees and pharmacy organisations
- Commissioners of health-promoting interventions including local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and NHS England
- Local professional networks (hosted by NHS England)
- Health and wellbeing boards
It may also be relevant for:
- Private and voluntary sector organisations providing health‑promoting services
- People working in related services, for example GP practices and out-of-hours services
- Members of the public
Guideline development process
How we develop NICE guidelines
NICE worked with Public Health England to develop this guideline.
Your responsibility
The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.
All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.
Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.
Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.