Press Release: Lloydspharmacy dispenses healthy season for CCFC

Coventry-based Lloydspharmacy is supporting a ground-breaking health and sports initiative as part of a new collaboration with Coventry City.

The company has become the official healthcare partner of Coventry City for the 2009/10 Championship season and will be the main sponsor of the Sky Blues’ Good Sports school scheme.

The Good Sports programme encourages children in the city to be more active by monitoring and rewarding minutes of physical activity.

A specially designed football-themed game board in each classroom helps teachers record the amount of time children spend doing physical activity.

At the end of each term School Sports Co-ordinators compare results from every class and the most active classes get to meet a Coventry City player.

To celebrate the new partnership with Lloydspharmcy, City defender Marcus Hall and youngsters participating in the Sky Blues Good Sports scheme joined Lloydspharmacy chief operations director Steve Gray at the Ricoh Arena.

Steve said: “We’re extremely pleased to be working with Coventry City Football Club. As a major employer in the city it means a lot to us to support our local community.

 “We’re also very keen to help fans and their families become more aware of, and improve, their health. The Sky Blues’ Good Sports scheme is an excellent initiative. If children learn to incorporate exercise into their daily routine it will help to prevent all sorts of health issues later in life such as obesity and diabetes.

“For adults we are planning health awareness events at the football ground. We want to demonstrate how important it is to keep an eye on your health and that it doesn’t have to be difficult to adopt a healthier lifestyle.”

The partnership will also see Lloydspharmacy sponsor two championship home games and the Community Award at the football club’s end of season awards dinner.

Nathan Kosky, commercial director at CCFC, said: “We have formed alliances with several blue chip companies, and it its great to be working with Lloydspharmacy not only because it is a major national firm based in the area, but also because we believe the Good Sports is a very worthwhile initiative.”

Lloydspharmacy is one of the country’s leading pharmacy retailers. The company employs more than 600 people at its head office in Walsgrave, Coventry and has 1700 pharmacies across the UK.

Ends

For more information please contact:
Claire Connolly
Press officer, Lloydspharmacy
T: 024 7643 2192
E: Claire.connolly@lloydspharmacy.co.uk

Notes to editors

About Lloydspharmacy

Lloydspharmacy has around 1700 pharmacies across the UK.  These are based predominantly in community and health centre locations.  The company employs over 17,000 staff and dispenses over 145 million prescription items annually.  

Lloydspharmacy which is a community pharmacy has primary care at the heart of its business.  This is why it has launched a range of products aimed at improving community health such as affordable blood pressure monitors and allergy relievers, as well as a suite of convenient professional health check services including free blood pressure and diabetes testing, and cholesterol and heart checks in the comfort of a private consultation room.

Some key facts about Lloydspharmacy:
•    In 2008 Lloydspharmacy had turnover of £1.7 billion
•    Prescription processing is up 9% to 145.4 million
•    Over 1.25 million free Type 2 diabetes screening tests and 1.5 million blood pressure tests completed to date
•    18,700 Cholesterol and Heart Check tests conducted to date
•    Lloydspharmacy offers more private consultation areas than any other pharmacy – currently they are available in 95% of Lloydspharmacies (1,630)


What is a School Sports Partnership?

The School Sports Partnership is a government initiative that aims to enhance sports opportunities for pupils across the country. Small ‘families’ of schools are clustered together so that primary schools, secondary schools and, where available, specialist sports colleges can work together to deliver high quality sports programmes.

In each partnership, one teacher from each secondary school spends two days a week in the role of School Sport Coordinator (SSCO), liaising with the primary and special schools within the group to create links that allow the pupils access to better facilities and coaching.

Overall, the initiative aims to help all schools develop links that contribute to better PE strategies, better secondary/primary links, enhanced extra curricular out-of-hours opportunities and coaching, officiating and leadership opportunities for senior pupils, teachers and other adults.


What is the scale of the childhood obesity problem?

The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) weighs and measures reception age (4-5 years) and year six (10-11 years) pupils.  The programme is overseen by trained health care professionals in schools.

In 2007, national figures showed that, of those children measured at reception age, 13% children were overweight and 9.9% were obese. Of those children measured at year six, 14% were overweight and 17.5% were obese.

In Coventry, of those children measured at reception age, 14.6% children were overweight and 11.3% were obese. Of those children measured at year six, 13.7% were overweight and 19.4% were obese.

On average these figures would represent that in Coventry in a reception class of 30 pupils:  
•    8 pupils are overweight and 3 of the eight overweight pupils are obese

And in a Year 6 class of 30 pupils:  
•    10 pupils are overweight and 6 of the ten overweight pupils are obese.

Media enquiries:
Adam Dent
Advent Communications
2 Edison Building
Electric Wharf
Sandy Lane
Coventry CV1 4JA
Tel: 024 7663 3636
http://www.advent-communications.co.uk