May 2012

The Healthy Living Pharmacy initiative has far exceeded expectations, now having nearly 200 accredited HLPs in 20 pathfinder sites across 30 PCTs, with many more vying to get involved. In the meantime, the government’s Pharmacy and Public Health Forum chair Professor Richard Parish has told community pharmacy that ‘its time has come’ and urged it to capitalise on the opportunities out there.
Pharmacy has not had a bigger opportunity than this to make its mark in public health. HLP aims to improve the health and wellbeing of the local community through high quality pharmacy-delivered public health services, including weight management. The pathfinder sites’ remit will also be to build the evidence-base for pharmacy’s contribution to public health
before roll-out.
Lipotrim has been behind pharmacy’s public health role all along, developing its weight management service package to enhance pharmacy’s developing professional roles. And since introducing the service from the GP arena to pharmacy over 10 years
ago, Lipotrim now has more than 2000 pharmacies offering the service, this represents a strong body of evidence to support pharmacy’s role in weight loss.
Foreseeing the value of evidence, the company has also developed the Lipotrim Pharmacy Patient Tracker to make it easy for each pharmacy to audit its own service and demonstrate value. For anyone looking to get involved in HLPs and use it to drive
their weight management service, this will be an invaluable tool.

PDF Version: ICP LIPOTRIM COLUMN May r1