Pharmacy-led

Cancer support and information in partnership with Macmillan

2010 was the first year of Boots UK’s three year partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support, which aims to improve access to Macmillan’s information and support services and realise Boots UK's ambition to improve the lives of people living with cancer. By working together, Boots UK and Macmillan will deliver more ways to access information about living with cancer to the high street, in local communities and on-line.

In 2010/11 over 600,000 Macmillan cancer information leaflets and 35 million dispensing bags featuring Macmillan information were distributed to all Boots UK stores. Nationally we have trained over 3,600 of our pharmacists in cancer awareness, as part of their continuing professional development. We have piloted and evaluated a range of Macmillan initiatives in 18 Birmingham stores. During February we supported Macmillan Awareness Week with over 100 Macmillan Information Specialists providing advice and information to customers in store.

Education

During 2010/11 we aimed to educate and inspire primary school children to be safe in the sun, by delivering sun safety education to schools.

We developed a new sun safety module for key stage 2 on www.bootslearningstore.com. Called Billy & Wizzy’s Day in the Sun, the module features a video about sun safety, a quiz and word search – all carefully developed in line with the national curriculum.

In addition all of our suncare consultants, our in-store suncare experts, each received a community toolkit with ideas and materials to enable them to support their local community with advice and information. Our people worked with local schools, Primary Care Trusts and community groups throughout the summer months.