HLP – Workforce Development

All patient-facing pharmacy staff must have an awareness of the public health and pharmaceutical needs of the population they serve.

Pharmacy owners must therefore:

• Consider the ways in which they engage with their local community, so they can seek to meet the needs of the local area and help address health inequalities, including targeting deprived communities. This may include the use of virtual and digital communication, as well as provision of face-to-face public health promoting interventions.
• DSPs will provide services to patients in a wider geographical area than that of most other pharmacies, so they will need to reflect on the broad health needs of their patients wherever they may live, rather than those living in a specific local area, for example by seeking information on the health profile of their patients when undertaking patient experience surveys or similar.

All patient-facing pharmacy staff must understand the basic principles of health and wellbeing, and that every interaction is an opportunity for a health promoting intervention.

Pharmacy owners must ensure that:

• They have at least one member of the patient-facing pharmacy staff (one Full Time Equivalent) that has completed the training and assessment of the RSPH Level 2 Award ‘Understanding Health Improvement’ and is therefore a qualified Health Champion.
• Where a pharmacy has less than one full time equivalent patient-facing staff member, excluding the responsible pharmacist, at least one staff member should complete the training and assessment.
• Where a Health Champion leaves the employment of the pharmacy owner and this means no trained Health Champion is in post, the pharmacy owner must put in place an action plan to recruit or train a staff member as a Health Champion as soon as possible and within six months at the latest, of the previous staff member leaving.

Pharmacy owners must have an appointed health and wellbeing leader from the pharmacy team that has undergone leadership training internally or through an organisation that maps to/encompasses the following domains:

• inspiring a shared purpose;
• sharing the vision;
• engaging the team;
• developing capability; and
• influencing for results.

Where a health and wellbeing leader leaves the employment of the pharmacy owner and this means no trained health and wellbeing leader is in post, the pharmacy owner must put in place an action plan to recruit or train a staff member as a health and wellbeing leader as soon as possible and within six months at the latest of the previous staff member leaving.

With regards to the promotion of healthy living, pharmacy contractors must therefore ensure that:

• All patient-facing pharmacy staff can use the NHS website and other appropriate public health information sources, e.g. PHE Resource Centre, when providing advice on health issues and where appropriate;
• The patient-facing pharmacy staff are friendly, welcoming and sensitive to the need for privacy for different individuals seeking advice including respecting people’s values and beliefs;
• The patient-facing pharmacy staff routinely explain who they are, wear a name badge and inform people about the information and/or services on offer;
• All patient-facing pharmacy staff receive training on how to approach people to discuss difficult or sensitive public health issues;
• All patient-facing pharmacy staff are able to provide brief health and wellbeing advice (2-3 minutes) and have an awareness that the person may need additional support for behavioural change; and
• When communicating with patients and the public and offering advice on difficult or sensitive issues, pharmacy owners and staff need to consider how they offer and maintain patient privacy. The approach taken may differ between pharmacy owners depending on the physical structure of the pharmacy, whether they provide services via remote means (e.g. DSPs must have the ability to undertake phone and video consultations. For bricks and mortar pharmacies, while there is no requirement to provide video consultations, transition towards this type of consultation is encouraged), the local population they serve, and other factors.