So, why are we launching a National Health Literacy day?

Our goal is to draw attention to the concept of health literacy and the associated benefits of increasing it. We are doing this for a number of reasons, but mainly, because poor health literacy in Ireland is estimated to account for 20% of the healthcare budget or €3 billion euro that’s three thousand million euros…………And this enormous figure is largely preventable! And that’s money which could be used to address waiting lists, build new hospitals and recruit more consultants.

And crucially, the only person who can increase your health literacy is youself. The government can’t do this for you, they can’t “make” you learn more about your medicines – they can recommend that you do it, but they can’t force you to do it……and if they could, that would be called fascism and fascism hasn’t quite made it to Ireland just yet.

It really is as simple as that! According to the World Health Organisation-the more a patient knows about their medicine, the more likely they are to continue taking their prescribed treatment correctly. The benefits to patients who do increase their

knowledge of their medicines is well documented and include:

• Increase in health outcomes
• Increase in quality of life
• Save money by decreasing unnecessary health care related costs
• Increase in medicine compliance
• Increase in patient safety

So, in effect, health literacy is a crucial factor not only in improving patient’s overall health but also saves critical resources for the Health service and ultimately the taxpayer. It’s a win-win for everyone.

And lastly, why are Lynchs Pharmacy involved? We are a small local independent pharmacy in Douglas, what are we at…..launching a National Health Literacy day?

Well, it turns out, we have developed an evidence based Telemedicine system which has been proven to increase patients Health Literacy by as much as 77%. And its free for customers!

We know our system works and we have the evidence to back up our claims, in fact our study is being published in the UK Journal of Public Health in a few weeks. So, you have no excuse not to get yourself informed, call in today and we will help you get yourself up to speed on your health literacy.