On the Potential Role of Local Pharmacies in Reducing Health Inequalities and Cutting Waiting Times (BBC News / BMJ Open)

Summary

Research by Durham University indicates that 89% of England’s population lives less than a 20-minute walk away from a local pharmacy. Pharmacies are capable (potentially, given funding and promotion) of providing a wider range of health services by virtue of their extensive reach into local communities.

Patients / customers are not required to make an appointment and there are usually no unreasonable delays waiting. The inverse care law of health inequalities (whereby areas with the best and most used health services tend to have the least health problems) does not appear to apply to local pharmacies.

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Reference

Triggle, N. (2014). Pharmacies ‘could play greater role’. London: BBC Health News, August 13^th 2014.

This relates to:

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Reference

Todd, A. Copeland, A. [and] Husband, A. [et al] (2014). The positive pharmacy care law: an area-level analysis of the relationship between community pharmacy distribution, urbanity and social deprivation in England. BMJ Open. August 12^th 2014, 4(8).