Racks of Make-Up & No Spanners

In March 2007, the MHF received funding and support from the Department of Health, Pfizer, the Royal Pharmaceutical Association of Great Britain and the National Pharmacy Association to carry out a 15 month action-research project exploring men's use of community pharmacy services to improve the health and wellbeing.

The project's aim was to add to the knowledge base of what works and why in order to encourage men to make better use of the pharmacy and to identify any barriers.  A workplace intervention was used to test the effectiveness of the setting to engage with men about their health.  The project also added to our knowledge of why men do not make use of mainstream health services and what needs to happen to enable them to do so.

Stephen Sibbald, the MHF's director of operations, commented: 'This project was really interesting as it allowed us to talk specifically about the role of the pharmacy in improving men's health directly with pharmacists and men themselves. Generally, men have a low level of knowledge about the public health promoting role of the pharmacist or indeed the level of specialist knowledge they might be able to access.  They also feel that the pharmacy is much more geared towards a female customer-base and have little to no awareness of the availability of private consulting rooms for confidential disussion with the pharmacist.

'We're convinced that the pharmacy has real potential in terms of reaching men who do not make use of traditional GP services but it is vital that pharmacies understand how best to engage with what for them is largely a new audience.  We feel confident that the findings from this project go some way to providing some of the answers".

An executive summary of the project report can be found here and a copy of the full report here.