NHS England health promotion campaigns
Pharmacies are required to participate in up to six health campaigns at the request of NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I). This generally involves the display and distribution of leaflets provided by NHSE&I.
In addition, pharmacies are required to undertake prescription-linked interventions on major areas of public health concern, such as encouraging smoking cessation.
Mandatory health campaign topics
CPE has agreed with NHSE&I to set the six campaign topics at a national level so that all community pharmacy contractors participate in the same campaigns, thus having a greater exposure to the target groups.
It has been agreed that the campaign topics should, wherever possible, support NHSE&I’s operational and public health priorities, such as winter pressures, smoking, obesity and alcohol.
Campaign topics in 2021/22
The topic for the first health campaign for 2021/22 was ‘Join the Millions’ national advertising campaign, for which specific materials was produced for both community pharmacies and general practices.
The campaign focused on informing the public about the Covid19 vaccine and encouraging people to take it up when it is offered to them.
Once the topics are agreed by NHSE&I and CPE they will be published here.
Public Health England Campaign Resource Centre: The Campaign Resource Centre brings together information for partners on all Public Health England marketing campaigns. Community pharmacy teams can download or order materials from this website free of charge.
DHSC / Public Health England / NHS England leaflets: some publications for nationally funded public health campaigns are available to order online from the Health and Social Care Publications Orderline or by calling 0300 123 1002.
At the start of 2020/21, CPE and NHSE&I agreed that the campaigns would be suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then agreed that community pharmacies would need to participate in two health campaigns during the rest of 2020/21, the first of which was the annual campaign which encourages eligible people to get vaccinated against flu.
The flu campaign began in early October 2020 with campaign resources being delivered to pharmacies
NHS England has confirmed that the second campaign, Help Us Help You Pharmacy Advice will not be taking place in March this year as intended as the need to the need to protect and support community pharmacy teams managing the impact of COVID-19 continues to take priority.
In 2019/20 all community pharmacy teams participated in the following campaigns, by ensuring that:
- staff were aware of the key messages
- appropriate materials were displayed for a least a month over the appropriate period.
| 1. Mid-February to mid-March | Help Us Help You Pharmacy campaign (formerly Stay Well Pharmacy) |
| 2. Mid-May to mid-June | Children’s oral health/Smile Month |
| 3. September | Antimicrobial resistance |
| 4. October | Stoptober |
| 5. November/December | Help Us Help You main campaign (formerly Stay Well this Winter) |
| 6. January 2020 | Alcohol |
Additional campaigns may be sent out from other parties, such as local public health teams, and where possible we encourage contractors to support these local campaigns.
