Self-Care Key To UK’s Post-COVID Recovery
Executive Summary
UK consumer healthcare industry association, the PAGB, sets out how self-care can contribute to the country's post-lockdown rebuild as part of a united life sciences Recovery Roadmap strategy.
The UK must consolidate the shift towards self-care seen in recent months as a result of the coronavirus as the country emerges out of lockdown, insists the country’s consumer healthcare industry association, the PAGB.
Published today, the ‘Recovery Roadmap’ – co-signed by the PAGB and seven other key organizations from across the UK life sciences sector – urges the UK government to leverage the power of self-care as the country rebuilds.
“There has been a significant increase in the demand for OTC products, including demand from patients with milder cases of COVID-19 and other self-treatable conditions,” the PAGB argues. “As the crisis phase ends, there is an unprecedented opportunity to embed this self-care behavior in a sustainable way.”
“An increased emphasis on self-care and education about when and how to interact with healthcare professionals will be key to building system resilience,” the association continues. “Patients should be supported to self-care in a way that ensures routes into help when needed.”
Alongside an increased in focus on self-care, the Roadmap also calls for improvements to UK medicines and healthcare products manufacturing capacity and an expansion in the role of community pharmacy.
New PAGB CEO Michelle Riddalls said she was “delighted” that the association had been able to represent the country’s self-care industry in the creation of the Roadmap and that she looked forward to working with the UK Government in taking the recommendations forward.
The coronavirus pandemic had underscored in “countless ways” the vital role of the UK life sciences sector, Riddalls said, and had shown its capacity to “respond quickly and flexibly to unprecedented circumstances, to speak with a united voice and to work together in pursuit of one goal.”
“This Recovery Roadmap shows that our sector has the potential to achieve even more by embracing the positive changes we have seen in the last three months,” she continued, “at the same time as addressing those areas which have thrown up significant challenges.”
“I am particularly pleased that the Roadmap highlights the importance of embedding the self-care practices that have been adopted by so many people during the coronavirus outbreak,” she added.