A report published back in 2020, by a collaboration of charities, found non-communicable diseases like heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, lung disease and liver disease were some of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in Northern Ireland. The report said they were responsible for more than four in every five deaths in the country.
Knowing these diseases were largely preventable, and possibly reversible, the winners of this year’s Commitment to Health and Wellbeing Award, Bannside Pharmacy, set about introducing a range of new services aimed at tackling the issue and improving the life expectancy of their patients.
Most recently, this has included a six week health and wellbeing programme which focussed on nutrition, the importance of losing fat rather than muscle or bone, sleep quality, movement as well as vitamins and minerals. Funded by the Big Lottery, via the Portglenone Enterprise group, the two hour sessions had space for 10 people. The course was fully subscribed within a few days of advertising and another course, currently underway, was also booked up within days.
As part of the programme, the pharmacy provided guidance on the importance of losing weight slowly, reducing sugar and refined carbohydrates and increasing quality protein while also doing some appropriate strength training. The pharmacy invested in a Styku 3D Infrared body scanner which gave a non-invasive breakdown of weight in under a minute, detailing lean mass percentage, fat mass percentage, visceral fat and waist and hip circumferences and ratio. Attendees could easily track their progress as the scan results were emailed to them and their body silhouette images from subsequent
scans could be superimposed to give a visual of their change in shape. This helped motivate people in the health coaching sessions.
The first course made a huge impact on the health of attendees. Nine of the 10 lost an average of 1.6kg, with 1.4kg of this being fat loss, and waist circumference decreased by an average of 1.7cm in all but one attendee. While one patient gained 0.2kg weight, she crucially lost 1.6kg fat mass and gained 1.7kg lean mass. She had increased strength training and her visceral fat dropped from 0.4kg to 0.2kg and waist circumference dropped by 3.1cm.
This is just the latest initiative to be run by the pharmacy. For the past 10 years they have been running group and one to one sessions, both on their own and in partnership with local community groups and GAA clubs, helping people improve their metabolic health. They also offer a private health coaching service. Over the past 12 months they have supported patients to improve their weight, energy levels, management of stress, sleep and blood pressure. This has led to improved health outcomes and better management of long term conditions, with many prevented from occurring in the first place.
In addition to this, Bannside Pharmacy increased their range of supplements by introducing Hifas da Terra medicinal mushrooms. Patients deciding on this treatment saw improvements in a range of areas including energy levels, gut health, joint pain, psoriasis, menopause and a reduction in urinary tract infections. Other services offered by the pharmacy, on top of Pharmacy First, include earwax microsuction, cryotherapy, vitamin B12 injections, period delay and venous blood testing.
The pharmacy said that, as well as improving patient health and outcomes, these private services have proved to be a valuable source of income at a time when NHS payments are decreasing and operating costs are rising. Capacity for staff to provide these services was unlocked by investing in technology which helped the pharmacy to enhance efficiency in the dispensing process. This included a Pharmaself24 prescription collection point and Titan PMR which, after the pharmacist has completed the clinical check, enables the dispensing team to assemble, label, package and hand out 70-75% of prescription items without the pharmacist needing to see them again.
Both the collection point and PMR are fully integrated and send a text to the patient when the prescription is ready. This means the majority of patients only come to the pharmacy when their medication is ready for collection, saving the pharmacy time in trying to locate unfinished prescriptions and allowing them to deliver more preventative services.
Here is what a couple of participants had to say about the course:
Male patient after two weeks: “My sleep is well improved and energy is getting there.”
Type two diabetic female after two weeks: “I’m feeling better and my energy has increased. I can clearly now identify the foods causing blood glucose spikes with the Libre 2 sensor.”
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