Health & Well-being

Bridges created the Hub pharmacy group in 2015 when it acquired nine pharmacies in the North of England previously owned by the Medicx Pharmacy Group. This will be used as a platform for a ‘buy-and-build’ strategy, led by the former Medicx Pharmacy Group management team.

The Hub aims to improve local health outcomes, with Bridges’ investment enabling the nine newly-acquired pharmacies to be refitted to provide a number of additional services, such as help with smoking cessation, weight-loss and minor ailments. In addition, they will focus on improving patient adherence to dosage regimes, helping to reduce costly drug wastage. Many of the pharmacies offer extended hours healthcare services, assisting the urgent care crisis by enabling patients to visit pharmacies late at night or on weekends.

The Hub has now launched 21 sites across the UK, the majority of which are located in areas that score highly in terms of health deprivation, working to improve local health outcomes.

Ways to Wellness is a newly formed organisation which has developed an innovative programme based on the concept of ‘social prescribing’ – the use of non-medical interventions to achieve sustained lifestyle change and improved self-care among people with long-term health conditions.

The SIB-backed programme will work to enhance patients’ abilities to manage their illness, through healthier behaviour, increased community participation and better access to specialist health services, supplementing the support they get from their healthcare professional.

Ways to Wellness will run for an initial seven years and improve the health of approximately 11,000 people living in the west of Newcastle. Over time, the services should improve their quality of life while also reducing the demands on NHS primary and secondary care. Local GP practices in Newcastle West have made use of social prescribing for a number of years; but this SIB will allow them to scale up provision properly for the first time.