Realising you have a problem with alcohol is the first big step to getting help.

You may need help if:

• you often feel the need to have a drink
• you get into trouble because of your drinking
• other people warn you about how much you're drinking
• you think your drinking is causing you problems

Getting the right support can be crucial to maintaining control in the future. Only relying on family, friends or carers for this often is not enough.

Ask our Pharmacist about what longer term support is available in your area. Self-help or mutual aid groups (groups such as AA or SMART Recovery groups) are accessible in most areas.

A pharmacist is another health expert you can turn to for asthma advice and support and you usually don't need an appointment. As well as your GP or asthma nurse, your local pharmacist is another highly trained healthcare professional who can answer questions about your asthma. If you have any concerns about your asthma, you can just walk into our pharmacy and ask to see the pharmacist.

This is useful because:

• you don't need an appointment
• our pharmacy are open outside GP surgery hours
• our pharmacy have a private consultation room
• you can ask about free prescription collection services, peak flow checks, stop smoking and losing weight advice.

Ask the pharmacist how to get the best from your asthma medicines. You can ask your pharmacist about the asthma medicines you've been prescribed. This is useful if you have concerns about things like side effects, using your inhaler, or your inhaler not working properly.
You can also ask about any over-the-counter medicines you're taking to help your asthma, such as anti-histamines for hay fever.

Community Pharmacy Consultation Service (CPCS)

We offer free of charge weekly dosette trays to patients that are finding it difficult to manage their medication

The pharmacy offers a weekly or monthly dossette system that will allow patients to help keep track of their medication, for those that are finding it difficult or unmanageable. The pharmacy team will take control of the ordering, dispensing and if needed, delivery of your medication.

We will collect any prescriptions from any of the GP practices in Heywood and take them to the Internet Pharmacy branch that the patient is nominated to.

Free prescription delivery service is available for any of our patients finding it difficult to come and collect their medication. Our delivery drives are happy to deliver this medication after 2pm every day to all patients in the Heywood area.

Our Pharmacists will conduct a free review of patients inhaler technique, checking their Asthma or COPD control and work with your GP to ensure you are on the best available treatment.

All of our patients can access the proven weight loss service called Lipotrim. Our trained staff will carry out a private consultation and explain the benefits of the service, as well as, support advice accessible on the Lipotrim website.

This is an opportunity for our pharmacist to discuss and review the medicines you are taking to ensure you are using them correctly and getting the maximum benefit. We will explain clearly and simply, without any medical jargon, what they are for and the conditions they treat and identify any possible side effects that you may be experiencing. We will listen to you and any problems you are having with your medicines, provide advice and support and if necessary contact your Doctor to discuss any issues that arise from our conversation.

An MUR can help:

• improve your understanding of the medicines you are taking;
• highlight problematic side effects and propose solutions where appropriate;
• improve adherence
• reduce medicines wastage, usually by helping you only order the medicines you need

Our pharmacist may be able to conduct an MUR over the telephone or for eligible patient

It is important that you take the right dose of your prescribed medicines at the right time each day to get the most from your medicines to control your condition(s) as much as possible. This can sometimes be difficult if you take more than one medicine. One way in which this can be made easier is for your medicines to be supplied in a Monitored Dosage System, which provides you with a separate compartment for each dosage time of the day.

A monitored dosage system (MDS) is a medication storage device designed to simplify the administration of solid oral dose medication, especially for those on multiple medications. It aims to address the issues of difficulty accessing medication due to sight impairment or other disability and/or forgetfulness.

MDS devices are usually a variation on the design of a box or a blister pack, divided into days of the week with several compartments per day to allow for the different timing of doses such as breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime.

 Our Pharmacist can help identify which patients this type of system would be suitable for.

MDS may be suitable for patients in the following circumstances:

• You struggle to organise medications and find it difficult to remember to take them at the correct time each day
• You have a large number of medications to take each day
• You find it difficult to remove medication from its packaging
• You have a carer who helps you to ensure you take your medicines correctly.
  

Ask a member of our pharmacy team about whether this service would benefit you or whether there is another course of action, which may be of more help.

You can have a free NHS flu Jab at our pharmacy:
• If you are 65 years of age or over
• If you are pregnant
• If you are a carer

If you have certain medical conditions including:
• Asthma
• Chronic Respiratory Disease
• Heart Disease
• Diabetes
• Kidney Disease
• Liver Disease
• Neurological Disease

When you are prescribed a new medicine by your doctor our pharmacists can offer support and advice to ensure you take the new medication as prescribed without suffering any unwanted side effects or explain any further questions you may have. We usually do this by keeping in contact with you during the first 4 weeks of your new medicine being prescribed.

The service is only available for people living in England, and only for those who have been prescribed a new medicine for the conditions listed:

• asthma
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• type 2 diabeasthmates
• high blood pressure
• people who have been given a new blood-thinning medicine

The NMS can help:

• improve your adherence (taking your medicines correctly) which will generally lead to better health outcomes
• increase your engagement with your condition and medicines, supporting you to make decisions about your treatment and self-management
• reduce medicines wastage
• reduce hospital admissions due to adverse events from medicines

• Complete and effective ordering of Medication and Appliances
• Fast and efficient Delivery Service
• Safe Storage of Medication
• Thorough Record Keeping for any Audit purposes
• Highly trained and experienced staff who understand the demands of a Nursing/Care home
• Medicines Use Review for your residents
• Help with training and development of your staff

We recommend you consider getting a flub jab If you don't qualify for an NHS vaccination but are:

• susceptible to colds and chest infections
• are self employed and unable to afford time off work
• would like to protect yourself from flu during peak season

We charge £10 and the service is available on a walk in basis without an appointment but please call the pharmacy first.

A member of the pharmacy team will contact those patients finding it difficult to order their medications in time or if a busy schedule means that it is difficult to reorder your medication. Every 3 weeks a member of the team will call you to check which medication you need to re-order and order this from the GP. This will then be ready for you to collect the following week, ensuring that you don't run out.

Antibiotic tonsillitis treatment without a prescription or seeing your GP

The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats we have ever faced, killing more than 8 million people a year around the world. According to the NHS, in the UK alone, smoking kills over 80,000 people every year and a further 500,000 people are admitted into hospital as a direct result of smoking.

Smoking has been linked to countless conditions from depression, infertility and asthma, to the more serious conditions such as lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease. It’s really not surprising that this is the case when you consider how many harmful substances there are in a cigarette. They have thousands of different chemicals, some of which are carcinogenic (cancer causing), and examples of others being acetone (used as nail polish remover), lead and cadmium (a highly toxic metal.)

The truth of the matter is, we all know how bad smoking is for our health, and a majority of smokers will say that they want to quit but giving up can be hard. Especially without the right help and support. That’s where our friendly and professional staff come in!

There is now more support than ever before, not just in the form of information, but also products designed to reduce cravings and to fight off any of the horrible withdrawal symptoms. One of the developments has been the introduction of Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT.) There are a variety of NRT products available:

• Patches
• Gum
• Inhalators
• Mouth Sprays
• Nasal Sprays
• Tablets
• Lozenges

Smoking is addictive because of the nicotine in cigarettes. That is why it is hard to quit. By starting one or even a combination of the above therapies, they will give a smoker a dose of nicotine in their blood. This reduces the nicotine withdrawal symptoms and cravings, whilst they break away from the psychological habit of smoking.

Our staff can advise you on the best way to kick your smoking habit. By coming in to our store our trained pharmacist will provide you with a free consultation, asking you questions such as how many cigarettes you smoke in a day and what triggers the need for a cigarette etc. By determining your ‘level of nicotine addiction’ the pharmacist will then be able to offer their advice on what they think would work best for you.

The pharmacist may even offer advice in other forms, for example, letting you know about any local support groups, advising you to take up a hobby or even suggesting a routine to start you off.

The benefit of having this support is that we are there 7 days a week whenever you need help, or even just a friendly professional to speak with. It is a proven fact that if you receive support while trying to stop smoking your chance for success is greatly increased.

We can provide a supervised consumption service, usually in the private consultation room in the pharmacy.

Going abroad and need to know which vaccinations you require or need advice on precautions?

We provide travel consultations with experienced staff who will assess the impact of any pre-existing medical conditions on your vaccine requirements. Our competitive pricing and easily accessible location makes us your first choice for all your travel needs

• Expert Travel Consultation
  
• Hajj and Umrah
• Full range of vaccines in stock including ACWY
• Anti-malarials dispensed on site
• Walk In or Book Over the phone
• We offer a wide range of services at competitive prices
• Our friendly team comprises of healthcare experts including pharmacists

Walk in for a free travel health consultation in our designated private consultation rooms today. We look forward to welcoming you and helping you with all your travel healthcare needs.

A pre-travel risk assessment provides a good opportunity to discuss travel-associated risk management with your pharmacist.

You'll need to contact us to arrange this, ideally 6 to 8 weeks before you leave. If your trip is sooner, contact us anyway as we may still be able to help and could provide vital health information.

During the assessment, we will:

• confirm if you're up-to-date with your routine immunisations
• assess your particular health risks
• recommend any vaccines and/or anti-malarial tablets you may need

Altitude Sickness - the mildest form being acute mountain sickness (AMS), is the negative health effect of high altitude, caused by rapid exposure to low amounts of oxygen at high elevation. Symptoms may include headaches, vomiting, tiredness, trouble sleeping, and dizziness.

Cholera – Common in Africa, Central America and Asia, cholera is an infection spread by bacteria in contaminated food and water.

Diphtheria, Poliomyelitis and Tetanus - This diphtheria, polio and tetanus vaccine may also be recommended if you're travelling to an area of the world where there is a high risk of contracting these diseases, or poor access to medical care, and you haven't had a booster in the last ten years.

Hepatitis A – Contaminated faecal matter spreads hepatitis A, a disease often caught via infected food and water and common across in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America.

Hepatitis B – Unprotected sex is usually responsible for hepatitis A infection, along with sharing needles, visiting dirty tattoo parlours, unhygienic barbers shops and nail salons. It’s common in both undeveloped and developed countries.

Japanese Encephalitis – Spread by mosquitoes, there’s no cure for this disease found across South East Asia, Japan, and tropical regions of Australia. There are also occasional epidemics in China and India.

Malaria – A highly dangerous disease spread by infected mosquitoes, malaria is common in the equatorial tropics and subtropics.

Meningitis; ACWY Vaccination for Hajj or Umrah – A bacterial infection, this disease tends to be commonest in sub-Saharan Africa. But it’s also sometimes found where it’s crowded and where there’s imperfect hygiene, for example universities and army camps. 

Rabies – Infected animal and human bites and scratches spread this awful disease, which is particularly common in Thailand, Brazil and India.

Tick-borne Encephalitis – A tick-borne virus found in eastern, northern and central Europe as well as eastern Russia, east Asia, China and Japan.

Typhoid – Bacteria are responsible for this infection and it’s found throughout the world, a risk wherever sanitation and hygiene are poor.

This a new exciting service that allows or pharmacist to provide travel vaccines alongside general and personalised travel health advice to patients. This will ensure that the trip of a lifetime or usual holiday is not affected by avoidable illness. Please see a pharmacist for more information.

We stock a popular range of vitamins and supplements aimed at nutrition, and women's and men's health.

We can offer weight management help.  Pharmacists are ideally placed to help you manage your weight as they already provide many health services to customers, including stop smoking services, blood pressure and cholesterol measurements and general advice on nutrition and healthy living. Pharmacists also know when a weight problem can be managed in the pharmacy and when there is a medical problem that needs co-operation with the doctor.

Ask us for advice on how to get started.