Community pharmacy’s role
As frontline, easily accessible healthcare professionals in the community pharmacies have a key role to play in providing substance use services.
The government provides a comprehensive guidance on how community pharmacies can deliver those services, which begins by stating: ‘Community pharmacy is vital to the care of people who use drugs and alcohol.
Pharmacies are well-placed in local communities to deliver high impact and accessible services.’ Services that community pharmacies can provide include:9
• Healthcare advice
• Public health interventions
• Information about medicines
• Promotion of self-care
• Signposting to relevant organisations and services
• Safeguarding
In terms of physical health pharmacy teams are well placed to offer people with substance use problems advice on:9
• nutrition
• weight management
• blood pressure monitoring
• general health
• dental health
• oral hygiene products
• sexual health
• smoking cessation
Pharmacy teams are also well placed to help identify individuals at risk of substance use or who already have a substance use problem. There are free online training packages such as the NHS England alcohol identification and brief advice programme.
Other training programmes help staff to identify more common or concerning physical health conditions related to substance use.10
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities says these conditions often require quick escalation or referral to specialist services (such as sepsis, and decompensating liver disease associated with chronic alcohol use).9