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Self-care

We promote self-care to empower individuals to take responsibility for their health and well-being. On this page you’ll find more information about self-care, our latest updates and our resources for members.

What is self-care?

Self-care is the actions that people take for themselves and their families to:

Promote and maintain good health
Promote and maintain well–being
Take care of their self-treatable conditions

Self-care is not the absence of care. It does not have to be practised in isolation and it may involve support and advice from others, such as expert pharmacy teams.

Leaders in self-care

At PAGB, we have long argued in favour of measures to prioritise self-care, increase education and awareness and support people’s confidence to practice self-care for self-treatable conditions.

By working closely with our members, organisations across the healthcare sector and policy makers we successfully secured a national self-care policy in May 2023. Following the publication of the Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care, we are now committed to supporting the implementation of the self-care policies within the plan.

Self-care in numbers

64 million

people in the UK will experience at least one self-treatable condition a year

Average of 5

the number of self-treatable conditions people experience each year

61 million

people in the UK use OTCs each year to treat self-treatable conditions

5 extra days

worked each year as a result of OTC use

Read our self-care survey report

Our 2023 report, titled ‘Take care of yourself and the NHS’, details the latest data on self-care and explores the challenges and benefits of patients taking a more proactive approach to care for common health conditions.

We surveyed over 5,000 people in the UK to understand consumer attitudes to self-care; this is our largest survey to date. The findings were launched during Self-Care Week in the UK and secured over 200 pieces of coverage, including double-page spreads in the Sunday Express, Sunday Mirror, Sunday People and Daily Record, as well as pharmaceutical trade press.

Find out more

Consumer confidence

Only 51%

of people feel confident in treating backache

39%

of people have requested a GP appointment for self-treatable conditions

Only 60%

of people use their pharmacist as a first step in seeking advice or medicine for self-treatable conditions

8%

of people go to A&E for self-treatable conditions

Watch our video: PAGB – the expert voice on self-care

The benefits of self-care

Self-care empowers people, enabling them to treat the symptoms of self-treatable conditions appropriately and effectively.
Self-care protects vital NHS resources by reducing the number of unnecessary GP appointments and A&E attendances.
Self-care narrows health inequalities and improves outcomes by equipping people across all socioeconomic groups with the tools to treat themselves effectively and appropriately where possible.

Research commissioned by PAGB in 2023 showed that 983 million OTC products are sold each year in the UK, empowering people to self-care and allowing them to treat self-treatable conditions at home.

Read more in The Economic Impact of Over-The-Counter Products in the UK – a report from Frontier Economics for PAGB, the consumer healthcare association

Self-Care Strategy Group

PAGB founded the Self-Care Strategy Group in 2021 to help shape the self-care policy landscape. Its members include representatives from leading pharmacy and healthcare organisations including the Company Chemists’ Association, the National Association of Primary Care, the National Pharmaceutical Association, NHS Clinical Commissioners, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Self Care Forum. The group is chaired by Dr Graham Jackson, National Clinical Advisor, Elective Programmes, NHS England.

Find out more here: selfcarestrategy.org

Primary care recovery plan

In May 2023, the Government and NHS England published a Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care. The plan seeks to empower people by rolling out tools they can use to manage their own health; this will be supported by an investment of up to £645 million over two years to expand services offered by community pharmacies.

As a direct result of our work with the Self-Care Strategy Group and publication of a Blueprint for a national self-care strategy, seven out of nine recommendations in the Blueprint have been included in the primary care recovery plan.

We are continuing to work with the Self-Care Strategy Group to ensure the implementation of the commitments in the plan, and as part of this work, have developed an implementation guide to support its delivery.

The global self-care context

We also support and work with our international colleagues on the promotion of self-care on a global level. PAGB’s self-care policy priorities are addressed in the Global Self-Care Federation’s Global Self-care Readiness Index – an in-depth analysis of self-care data in countries around the world. The Index is a practical tool to help policymakers better understand and recognise the enablers of self-care: stakeholder support; consumer empowerment; health policy; and the regulatory environment.

As part of our promotion of self-care internationally, in 2023, we took part in a webinar hosted by our counterparts in Ireland, a podcast interview with the Austrian consumer health trade association, and participated in an information sharing mission with the Brazilian medicines regulator and trade association. We also support our members in sharing the self-care message with their global colleagues.

The social and economic impact of self-care

In July 2023, we launched a groundbreaking new report detailing the economic value of the over-the-counter sector. The findings showed that the UK OTC sector saves the NHS £6.4 billion of prescription and appointment costs each year.

The report also demonstrates the value of encouraging people to take a more proactive approach to their health by widening the scope of how they self-care. These changes could save the NHS over £1.7 billion a year by eliminating 25 million unnecessary GP appointments and five million avoidable visits to A&E.

Watch a recording of our webinar on the economic impact of over-the-counter products in the UK

Resources and reports

Unleashing the potential of digital tools to support self-care (September 2023)

Download PDF

The economic impact of over-the-counter medicines in the UK (July 2023)

Download PDF

Empowering people to self-care: a toolkit for Primary Care Networks (May 2023)

Download PDF

PAGB’s Vision for Digital Self-Care (February 2023)

Download PDF

Taking care, taking control: Self-Care Attitudes 2022 (November 2022)

Download PDF

Self-care pathway infographic (May 2022)

Download PDF

Self-care

What is self-care?

Leaders in self-care

Self-care in numbers

64 million

Average of 5

61 million

5 extra days

Read our self-care survey report

Consumer confidence

Only 51%

39%

Only 60%

8%

Watch our video: PAGB – the expert voice on self-care

The benefits of self-care

Self-Care Strategy Group

Primary care recovery plan

The global self-care context

The social and economic impact of self-care

Watch a recording of our webinar on the economic impact of over-the-counter products in the UK

Resources and reports

Unleashing the potential of digital tools to support self-care (September 2023)

The economic impact of over-the-counter medicines in the UK (July 2023)

Empowering people to self-care: a toolkit for Primary Care Networks (May 2023)

PAGB’s Vision for Digital Self-Care (February 2023)

Taking care, taking control: Self-Care Attitudes 2022 (November 2022)

Self-care pathway infographic (May 2022)

Realising the potential. Developing a blueprint for a self-care strategy for England (October 2021)

Self-care survey 2020 (February 2021)

Implementation of the delivery plan for recovering access to primary care

Self-Care Manifesto: promoting self-care to support primary care recovery