Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what consideration his Department has given to the involvement of pharmacies in the NHS Health Check scheme.

The Next Steps Commissioning Guidance developed by the Department for primary care trusts explicitly recognises the merit of pharmacy involvement for NHS Health Check programme.

While the majority of NHS Health Checks are presently carried out within general practices, a growing number are being delivered by community pharmacy.

Public Health England (PHE) is currently conducting a survey to further enhance its understanding of the involvement of pharmacies in NHS Health Check.

PHE has been engaging local authorities and pharmacy providers to explore the benefits of using community pharmacy as a provider of the NHS Health Check. Consequently, several local authorities and pharmacy stores are exploring potential pilots, including Leeds Council and Asda. Learning from these pilots will be shared through the NHS Health Check learning network, which is managed by PHE.