Pharmacies

Your Pharmacist can give you advice and information on a range of common conditions and minor injuries such as:

• aches and pains
• sore throat
• coughs
• colds and flu
• insect bites
• earache
• cystitis
• skin rashes

Your Pharmacist can also advise you if you need to see a GP. So if you start to feel under the weather, pop along to your local pharmacy for advice and medicine before it gets worse.

Pharmacies can help you look after yourself by providing advice and information on:

• eating healthily
• physical activity
• how to loose weight
• how to cut down or stop smoking

Where appropriate, your pharmacy can also signpost you to other local sources of advice and support.

If you have unwanted or out-of-date medicine, take it into your local pharmacy to dispose of it for free. Where possible, try to return medicines in their original packaging as some may need special handling. Disposing of medicines incorrectly, such as in the bin or pouring them down the sink, could lead to them being found by children or pose risks to the environment.

Most pharmacies can sell you a morning-after pill over the counter after a consultation with the pharmacist. Some may even provide it free on the NHS. Most pharmacies also sell pregnancy test kits, and some have a private area where you can use the kit.

Injecting drug users who share or reuse needles/syringes are at risk of contracting various blood-borne viruses and infections including HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

To help reduce the transmission of these viruses, many pharmacies run needle and syringe exchange services where injecting drug users can exchange used needles for new ones.