Sefton CVD Risk Factor Pharmacy Screening Programme Evaluation

Background

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most common preventable cause of mortality in the developed world and contributes sustainability to the escalating cost of health care. Even considering only coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke in England and Wales, in 2005 there were 124,000 attributed deaths; 39,000 of those were in people aged less than 75 years.

NHS Sefton is currently offering a CVD risk factor screening programme, in partnership with ten pharmacies across Sefton. To ensure that the pharmacies reach those population groups at greatest risk NHS Sefton are looking to develop a social marketing programme to maximise uptake of screening amongst the local populations.

Approach

I was extremely pleased with the report from HM Partnerships. It gave us useful information about a wide range of issues particularly focused on communication. It has been well received by the pharmacies and pharmacists to help them to develop their own strategies for the delivery of the service. I thought this was good value for money.

Nicky Speakman
Health Trainer Lead, NHS Sefton

HM Partnerships were commissioned to carry out some insight work, gathering the views of local people within the target group and in the vicinity of participating pharmacies.

A total of 1064 on street questionnaires were conducted, across the 10 pharmacies. Of which 566 (53%) were male and 498 (47%) female. The data gathered showed that 53% of those engaged, were aware of the free health checks, and 56% of this group had actually used the service.

The research team conducted some semi-structured interviews within 50% of the participating pharmacies. This stakeholder insight gathering, found that uptake of the health checks in the pharmacies was low, they summarised that this may have been due to high uptake of a similar check offered by the GP surgeries.

Findings

During the research we found that approximately half of the interviewees had not heard of the service and that there was also confusion regarding what the health check consisted of and around confidentially of results. Therefore, there is need to build peoples knowledge and understanding of the pharmacy health check service. To address this we recommended, a community advertising campaign, the development of a direct communication, such as letter via a GP, and lastly, specific targeted marketing materials for GP waiting rooms.

All the pharmacies involved in this project, would like access to better promote their services. Direct referrals from GP surgeries, leaflet and poster displays in GP surgeries, and giving higher profile to the service via the local press were all favoured methods.