Public health (promotion of healthy lifestyles)
Published on: 10th July 2013 | Updated on: 23rd February 2026
Each financial year (1st April to 31st March), pharmacies are required to participate in up to six health campaigns at the request of NHS England. This generally involves the display and distribution of leaflets provided by NHS England; see further details below.
In addition, pharmacies are required to undertake prescription-linked interventions on major areas of public health concern, such as encouraging smoking cessation.
Read the Promotion of healthy lifestyles (public health) service specification
Please note that changes to the requirements for health campaigns have been made since the publication of the service specification.
Latest update
Second national health campaign has finished
The second 2025/26 national health campaign finished on Sunday 22nd February 2026.
There are no further national health campaigns in 2025/26; it was agreed in negotiations was that there would be two national health campaigns and two local health campaigns (the latter agreed by ICBs and LPCs at a local level) that pharmacy owners would have to undertake. That is two fewer campaigns than is generally required within the CPCF.
Click on a heading below for more information
| Financial year | |
| 2025/26 |
One of the points agreed in the 2025/26 negotiations was that there would be two national health campaigns and two local health campaigns (the latter agreed by ICBs and LPCs at a local level) that pharmacy owners would have to undertake. That is two fewer campaigns than is generally required within the CPCF. All pharmacies needed to participate in the two national campaigns, using relevant materials to promote the Pharmacy First service to the public. The timings for the campaigns were:
The first campaign took place alongside an NHS England advertising campaign promoting Pharmacy First to the public. The NHS England advertising campaign was, with some minor updates, based on the creative content used in the last two national Think Pharmacy First campaigns. Pharmacy owners could meet the requirements of the campaigns in several ways, by promoting the Pharmacy First service to the public during the two campaign periods. That could have included any of the following ways to promote Pharmacy First:
Existing Pharmacy First promotional materials or content that pharmacy teams were already using in the pharmacy, on their website or on their social media channels would meet the requirements for the campaigns. For any pharmacies that did not have Pharmacy First marketing materials already in use, a range of resources to promote the service were available:
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| 2024/25 | Pharmacy owners were not required to participate in any health campaigns. |
| 2023/24 | Pharmacy owners were not required to participate in any health campaigns. |
| 2022/23 | There was one national health campaign on weight management. This campaign started on Tuesday 3rd January and finished on Sunday 29th January 2023. |
Where requested to do so by NHS England, each pharmacy must record the number of people to whom information is provided as part of one of these campaigns. NHS England can also ask for additional information in relation to the campaign.
Any additional information to be requested will initially be discussed with Community Pharmacy England. The aim of requesting additional information will be to help to evaluate the impact of the campaign and to assist with future policy development. Pharmacy owners will be notified of the additional information which needs to be collected and supplied in advance of the campaign starting.
NHS England can request that the information on the campaign is provided to them electronically.
If leaflets and posters or other patient literature are to form part of a public health campaign, these should be provided to pharmacy owners by NHS England. It is not a requirement of the service for the pharmacy owner to purchase leaflets or to go online and download and print leaflets.
UK Health Security Agency health publications website: some publications for nationally funded public health campaigns are available to order online from the Health publications website.
Department of Health and Social Care Campaign Resource Centre: The Campaign Resource Centre brings together information for partners on government health improvement campaigns. Community pharmacy teams can download or order some materials from this website free of charge.
For more information on this topic please email services.team@cpe.org.uk
