NPA Holds Health Inequalities Summit

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 25 Jun 2009 - 7:00 PDT

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The National Pharmacy Association is organising a Health Inequalities Summit in the Toynbee Hall lecture theatre, Tower Hamlets on Monday 29 June, 10.00am-4.00pm.

Platform speakers will include:

- Michael White - political journalist and HSJ contributor
-Alex Bax (Mayor's Senior Policy Advisor, Greater London Authority
- Andrew Lansley MP - Shadow Secretary of State for Health
- Dr Jessica Allen - Project Director, Health Inequalities Review for England
- Jonathan Mason - Clinical Lead for community pharmacy, Department of Health
- Gul Root - Public Health Lead, Pharmacy Branch, Department of Health
- Alwen Williams - Chief Executive, Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust
- Community pharmacists delivering health improvement services, including sexual health, vascular risk assessment, weight management and stop smoking.

Participants will also include representatives from Primary Care Trusts, Local Pharmaceutical Committees, the Royal College of GPs, patient organisations and academia.

Principal objectives are:

- To help keep health inequalities high on the NHS and political agenda.
- To highlight the contribution and potential contribution of community pharmacy to addressing health inequalities (including the NHS Health Check).
- To share good practice in maximising the contribution of community pharmacy.

Towards the end of last year, the Department of Health commissioned Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Chair of the WHO Commission for Social Determinants, to conduct a post-2010 strategic review of health inequalities. The health of the worst off in England has improved over the last 10 years but, with comparable improvements in average health, the gap between the worst off and the average has not narrowed. The report showed that the gap in life expectancy between the bottom fifth and the population as a whole had widened by 2% for males and 5% for females between 1997-9 and 2001-3. The shift means the life expectancy in the wealthiest areas is seven to eight years longer than the poorest areas.

Ian Facer, NPA Chairman, comments:
"The daily contact between the pharmacy team and a cross-section of society provides a singular opportunity for tackling health inequalities.

"Increased public investment in community pharmacy would mark a shift to more equitable health provision by bringing a wider range of NHS services into the heart of neighbourhood communities where they are within easy reach of the people who need them most. The latest Government statistics show that 99% of the population - even those in the most deprived areas - can get to a pharmacy within 20 minutes by car, and 96% can get there within 20 minutes by walking or using public transport.

"In pockets around the country pharmacies are offering smoking cessation, weight management and cardiovascular risk assessment services. But PCT commissioning of these services is far from universal. Allowing all pharmacists to provide these public health services and incentivising them to find those in the community who are not being picked up elsewhere would provide a significant boost to attempts to reduce health inequalities.

"The NHS will be investing approximately £250m per annum in the vascular risk assessment programme (NHS Health Check), with an explicit aim of tackling health inequalities. Without pharmacy involvement, those who may have the most to gain from the service, may miss out, thereby worsening health inequalities. Community pharmacy is very well placed to deliver a service to this 'hard to reach' group.

"We hope that the exploration of the issue in depth at this summit will bring, in the long-term, a valuable reduction in health inequalities through the widespread use of community pharmacy."

Source
National Pharmacy Association