Highly commended
Haleon’s Community Pharmacy Pain Consultations Programme
Summary of work
For decades, human sciences research has shown that to encourage new habits, we must understand how people think, feel, and behave. On this basis, Haleon’s Centre for Human Sciences (CHS) was established to influence patient behaviour positively through trusted science and deep human understanding.Addressing a Critical Gap: Many patients’ struggle to discuss musculoskeletal pain, evaluate their treatment needs, or seek clinical advice. Recognising the crucial role of community pharmacists as holistic healthcare providers, we aimed to support them in enhancing patient interactions and driving better patient behaviours.Our Transformative Solution: We provided this support by developing the Community Pharmacy Pain Consultations Programme, led by academic experts and practicing pharmacists. Using research-backed theory from behavioural, psychological, and social sciences, we developed and trialled interventions to achieve this aim.Tangible Impact & Patient Empowerment: Results showed effectiveness in changing patients’ behaviour and elevating patient-pharmacist relationships. The Programme used in-store cues and prompts to reframe patients’ perceptions of the pharmacist’s role, underscored by a 32-percentage point (pp) increase in patients no longer seeing the pharmacy as just a place to pick up prescriptions. This demonstrates a fundamental adoption of patient-centric thinking, improving health outcomes and ensuring patient needs remain the priority.
Judges’ comments
Haleon and Ogilvy Health’s entry had SMART objectives, a clear context and was exceptionally well-written. The judges were really impressed by the insights-led approach and also liked its disruptive nature. The judges thought it was great to see a pharmacy programme entered and they were impressed by the pre- and post-assessments, and that it had a concrete benefit on patients.
