071 Gareth Evans: The importance and value of developing enhanced services in community pharmacies to improve patient health

<p>On this week's episode, I am excited to launch Part II of the sleep series and introduce Gareth Evans to the podcast. Gareth is a dedicated and passionate pharmacist who genuinely&nbsp;values helping&nbsp;his community through accessible enhanced services that aim to improve patient health. He graduated from the University of Bradford in 1998. He completed the 5-year&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bradford.ac.uk/courses/ug/pharmacy-mpharm/" target="_blank">MPharm</a> Course which still exists today. This course&nbsp;enables you to undertake your pre-registration training as part of the programme where&nbsp;students leave university as a qualified pharmacist pending successful completion of the GPhC registration exam.</p> <p>Gareth owned his first community pharmacy in 2002, less than 5 years after qualifying as a pharmacist. He set up a consultation room and initiated blood glucose testing and blood pressure monitoring which was relatively new at the time. Weight loss and weight management became part of the services Gareth provided and this was the start of his passion&nbsp;to combat the obesity epidemic. This passion inspired him to set up his own organisation called Waistaway.&nbsp;Waistaway is a complete weight loss and weight management programme that&nbsp;aims to help combat&nbsp;the obesity crisis by combining high quality products and professional, one to one support.&nbsp;They offer a range of weight loss and weight management solutions designed around the individual's requirements. From basic weight check and advice, portion control, partial food replacement, all the way up to total food replacement using the Lipotrim pharmacy programme. Gareth&nbsp;has provided this service for&nbsp;over 16 years and has collected data for over 1800 patients which is a phenomenal achievement! He has successfully published the data and results which is linked below.</p> <p>Adrian Zacher (see podcast episode <a href="https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/6haBV1Z6Usb" target="_blank">70</a>) contacted Gareth via LinkedIn and