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 and our resources for members. Follow the link below for our latest updates on our self-care activity.
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 Census Report
Our 2024 Self-Care Census Report reviews real-world data from a census of 4,000 adults in the UK to reveal the latest consumer trends in self-treatable conditions, uncovering evolving attitudes towards self-care and how individuals are accessing healthcare services.
These vital insights help support PAGB’s work shaping the future of self-care and enhancing public health. The report sheds a light on the most-experienced self-treatable conditions and the actions people take for these as well as consumer confidence in over-the-counter medicines and self-care. It also highlights the current challenges and opportunities for self-care and the next steps that we can take in policy and practice to promote self-care.
The report was launched on International Self-Care Day, securing national and pharmaceutical trade press coverage, with outlets including the Daily Mail, Mirror, Express, Independent and Good Morning Britain sharing the insights.
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
- 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
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
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.
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 May 2024 we joined he Latin-American Association of Responsible Self-Care (ILAR), a co-member of the Global Self-Care Federation, on a webinar to discuss the regulation of food supplements in Latin America. We shared an overview of the UK food supplement regulatory landscape with representatives from relevant authorities from twelve Latin American countries.
Additionally, 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
Our latest self-care activity
Find out about the latest activity from PAGB and our current areas of focus to promote self-care.