How can Community Pharmacy take pressure off the system by delivering patient care?

Community Pharmacists have an astonishing 2 million healthcare-related contacts with patients and the public every single day. They are stitched-into the daily fabric of people’s lives in a unique way, and community pharmacy defies the so-called “inverse care law” which states that those in most need actually receive the least care.

With the recent introduction of Pharmacy First and Independent Prescribing, in England the much-ignored community pharmacy sector looks to take centre stage in primary care helping provide earlier diagnosis and more rapid access to treatment. But is this enough?

Graham Phillips the self-styled “pharmacist who gave up drugs” argues not.

His award-winning ProLongevity program centres upon the premise “Live Healthy for Longer”. It brings together the use of technology such as Continuous Glucose Monitoring, and a structured approach to lifestyle interventions to prevent or reverse metabolic syndrome and diabesity.

The UK, is notoriously the sick man of Europe but, Graham argues, we can’t medicate ourselves out of the obesity pandemic with drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. We need a paradigm shift towards prevention.

Graham runs a model community pharmacy in Letchworth, North Herts. He aims to create entirely new models of care by changing the paradigm and putting prevention front and centre.