1. Promoting Health in the Leith Walk Area of Edinburgh ; A Community Pharmacy Initiative
Aileen Boags and Dawn Owen
NHS Lothian
Community Pharmacy Development Team
Introduction
Discussion and Future Developments
There are currently over twenty organisations involved in the project ranging from national organisations such as Home Energy Scotland and MacMillan, to local organisations such as LOOPs and Care4Carers.
The pharmacy visits have been in place since early Our focus for 2018 has been to begin to gather evidence of outcomes of this way of working, results will be available early 2019.
Feedback from participating organisations
Feedback from participating pharmacies
Future Developments
Delivery drivers to be used as a method of getting information to harder to reach residents
Create biographies for each organisation involved- this will be a reference source for pharmacy teams
Use a common project logo to increase recognition and awareness
The Community Pharmacy Project: Promoting Health in Leith is a collaborative project which promotes the local services available from third sector organisations (voluntary, community and charitable) in community pharmacies, and raises awareness of services available from community pharmacies amongst third sector staff.
The Project hopes to build-up and support relationships between local community pharmacies and third sector organisations in the Leith Walk area to provide greater access for local residents, improve referral to appropriate services in the area and to encourage access to community pharmacies as a first port of call for health and wellbeing.
Connections made with other organisations in the area and work taken forward
Increased awareness of services that pharmacies offer
Aims
We didn’t know the range of services that were available in the area
Improve access to information about support services available to local residents
Improve access to information about community pharmacy services available to local residents
Encourage residents to make the community pharmacy their first port of call for health and wellbeing
It’s great to be able to refer someone to an organisation we think they would benefit from
Methods
Third sector agencies are timetabled in to the four participating pharmacies
The pharmacy team are briefed on what the service offers, who could benefit from the service and the referral pathway
Representatives from the third sector organisations can opt to spend time in the pharmacy talking to residents throughout the four week block or they can leave the information with the pharmacy team
After each 4 week block the pharmacy team are left with information about the service and continue to refer appropriate residents
Quarterly project meetings are held allowing the pharmacies and the organisations involved to feedback on their experiences
Conclusion
There is enthusiasm for this way of working to continue and be rolled out further. We feel that gathering quantitative data along with more qualitative data will help us to refine the model ahead of any future roll out.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of the organisations and community pharmacies involved in this work. Also, Nathan Richardson-Read in the NHS Lothian Primary Care Team and Lesley Reid in the Health Promotion Team for their continued support.