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Haleon's Community Pharmacy Pain Consultations Programme, piloted in Australia, has shown promising potential for enhancing pharmacies' roles in pain management. Running from January to May 2023, the programme was designed and tested by the Haleon Centre for Human Sciences, recognising the pressing need to optimise pain consultations between patients and pharmacists. The used a series of simple interventions, rooted in behavioural science, aimed at improving patient experiences in pharmacies. These include window posters and floor graphics to disrupt habitual behaviours and reframe patients' perceptions of the pharmacist's role. Results measured by Professor Colin Strong, head of behavioral science at IPSOS, indicated a significant increase in patient preparedness for discussing pain. Specifically, 92 per cent of patients reported feeling more prepared for these conversations after the interventions, up from 71per cent before.

At this year's pharmacy show and many recent conferences, I have given presentations on behavioural economics. People's health outcomes are greatly determined by behaviours outside the pharmacy or other health settings. Whether they take their medicines, give up smoking or eat healthily, these choices are made at home in the course of their daily lives. How many minutes of the 168 hours in a week, are your customers in contact with you? For many pharmacists, behavioural economics is a 'new' discipline and often flies in the face of what we learned at university years ago. People had symptoms, often traced back to a disease, which led to a treatment, which the patient took (as instructed) and got better. If only! In the context of healthcare, behavioural economics shows that people do not always make decisions based purely on rational cost-benefit analysis. Instead, our choices are often shaped by factors like cognitive biases, social influence, and environmental cues. Once you've left university and started practicing in the real world, this should not come as a surprise. The fact is people do not always act in their own best interest and people do not always do the "right" thing, even if they know what the right thing is. Intention can be a poor predictor of actual health behaviour change-now termed the intention-behaviour gap. In other words, although patients intend to change and maintain their behaviour, the data suggest that many will not follow through with their intention.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has reminded healthcare professionals prescribing aripiprazole to alert patients about its possible side effects, following a rise in the number of reports of gambling disorder associated with the drug. Patients taking aripiprazole, which is used for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are at risk of developing unusual urges or cravings that they cannot resist, including behaviours such as addictive gambling, excessive eating or spending, or an abnormally high sex drive. The regulator has received 69 reports of gambling or gambling disorder suspected to be caused by aripiprazole in the last 14 years via the Yellow Card Scheme, out of which 32 were received between 1 January and 31 August this year. Alison Cave, MHRA Chief Safety Officer, said: "The number of reports for suspected gambling and other impulsive behaviours associated with aripiprazole are small in comparison to the frequency with which it is prescribed, but the consequences for any patient developing these conditions can be significant."

The NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, which was introduced in England in 2016, is helping hundreds of thousands of people to lead healthier lives. People with pre-diabetes are being identified and offered a nine-month behaviour change programme that supports healthier diet and exercise choices to reduce their risk of developing diabetes. A study funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has found a significant reduction in diabetes risk among patients who had been referred to the NHS programme. Three years after their referral, the participants were 20 per cent less likely to have type 2 diabetes than a similar person who was not included in the programme, the evaluation revealed.