Welsh pharmacies launch diabetes and stroke awareness campaign

A major public health campaign has been launched that will see Welsh pharmacists raising awareness of the health risk posed by diabetes and stroke.

The One in Ten campaign commenced on September 3rd 2012 and will run for two weeks at all 714 pharmacy outlets across the nation, with free risk assessments to be given to any patient that is concerned about these two serious conditions.

Diabetes UK Cymru has joined forces with the Stroke Association, Public Health Wales, Community Pharmacy Wales and all seven Welsh health boards to organise the project.

The aim of the scheme is to identify the ten percent of people in Wales who are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes or having a stroke.

Russell Goodway, chief executive of Community Pharmacy Wales, said: "Community pharmacies are ideally placed to take public health messages to the 50,000 people a day who visit their local pharmacy, whether they are well or ill."

The Welsh government also recently announced that qualifying patients will be able to get their free NHS flu vaccination from selected community pharmacies later this year.