Three national health charities have formed a partnership with Tescos to train the supermarket’s pharmacists to help the public lower their risk of serious health problems, including cancer, diabetes and health disease.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF), Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and Diabetes UK’s training focuses on helping pharmacists to have conversations with the public about how serious health conditions can be averted through small lifestyle changes.

Pharmacists and their colleagues in more than 200 Tesco stores have completed the training, which also includes advice on acting on potential signs of serious health conditions.

“Thousands of lives could be saved every year through people making positive changes that lower their risk of type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart and circulatory diseases,” said Diabetes UK head of care Dan Howarth.

To help promote the link up the supermarket and the three charities have released the findings of a survey of more than 2,000 adults that found only one in ten Brits turn to their local pharmacist for advice on improving their health.

This survey also found that a quarter of people who had visited their pharmacist for health advice found it easier to speak to someone in a pharmacy than in another healthcare setting. More than a half welcomed not having to book an appointment at a pharmacist to access advice.

According to the charities more than 7.6m people in the UK have a heart of circulatory disease, while 4.9m live with diabetes and three million live with cancer.

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