Prescribing Happiness began as a positive psychology wellbeing intervention developed for a community pharmacy setting. It explored whether evidence-based wellbeing activities could sit alongside traditional pharmacy care and help people flourish, rather than simply manage illness.
Long before phrases such as whole health, social prescribing and preventative healthcare became part of everyday conversation, we kept asking one simple question inside our pharmacy.
Could a pharmacy prescribe happiness?
That question became part of our thinking from the early days of The Health Dispensary.
A couple of years after founding the pharmacy in 2016, we became involved in a research collaboration with Cardiff Metropolitan University. Together, we began exploring something that felt unusual for a community pharmacy at the time:
Could a pharmacy support people’s wellbeing as well as dispense medicines?
Today, that question may not sound particularly radical. Back then, it was surprisingly different.
Community pharmacies were still largely viewed as places to collect prescriptions, buy cough medicines and seek advice about minor illnesses. All of that work remains enormously important, but it is often reactive. Someone develops a symptom, becomes unwell or needs treatment, and then asks for help.
Meanwhile, we were noticing something else across our pharmacy counter.
People rarely walked through our doors carrying only physical symptoms. They also arrived carrying stress, loneliness, uncertainty, exhaustion, anxiety, grief, poor confidence or the quiet feeling that modern life had become overwhelming.
Sometimes the medicine was only one part of the conversation.
Sometimes what people valued most was being listened to, feeling understood and leaving with a little more hope than when they arrived.
Those conversations planted the idea behind Prescribing Happiness.
The Prescribing Happiness Positive Psychology Wellbeing Intervention
Working with researchers and PhD students from Cardiff Metropolitan University, The Health Dispensary contributed to the development of a positive psychology wellbeing programme designed specifically for use in a community pharmacy setting.
The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Pharmacy in January 2023 under the title:
Development of a Positive Psychology Well-Being Intervention in a Community Pharmacy Setting
Ward JL, Sparkes A, Ricketts M, Hewlett P, Prior A-L, Hallingberg B and James DH.
The proposed intervention became known as Prescribing Happiness, or P-Hap.
Rather than concentrating solely on illness or physical symptoms, the positive psychology wellbeing intervention explored how evidence-based activities might be adapted for delivery through an accessible community pharmacy.
Importantly, this was an intervention-development study. It designed and refined the Prescribing Happiness programme; it did not claim to prove that a pharmacy could make people happy or replace appropriate medical or psychological care.
The proposed six-week intervention was created using findings from nine existing studies, together with user feedback. It also included a wellbeing diary designed to be completed three days each week.
What Was Included in the Prescribing Happiness Programme?
The Prescribing Happiness intervention was underpinned by the PERMA model of wellbeing. This model considers five areas that can contribute to a more fulfilling life:
- P — Positive emotion: noticing and creating moments that feel enjoyable, hopeful or uplifting.
- E — Engagement: becoming absorbed in activities that use our attention, interests and abilities.
- R — Relationships: developing supportive, positive and meaningful connections with other people.
- M — Meaning: feeling connected to something worthwhile or larger than ourselves.
- A — Accomplishment: working towards goals and recognising progress, achievement and personal growth.
The intervention also drew upon several activities from positive psychology research. These included:
- Three Good Things — reflecting on positive experiences from the day.
- Using signature strengths in new ways — recognising personal strengths and finding different ways to apply them.
- Best Possible Selves — imagining and writing about a positive, realistic future.
- Character strengths — becoming more aware of qualities that may help us navigate life.
In simple terms, Prescribing Happiness asked a bigger question than how to remove illness:
What helps people feel that life is going well?
Why Explore a Positive Psychology Wellbeing Intervention in Pharmacy?
One reason community pharmacies are so interesting in this area is their accessibility.
Pharmacies sit in the middle of communities and form part of everyday life. People may visit their local pharmacy much more frequently than other healthcare settings, sometimes without needing an appointment.
They may already know the pharmacy team. They may feel comfortable asking a small question that gradually develops into a more meaningful conversation. In some cases, the pharmacist is also one of the few healthcare professionals people can approach without first navigating a formal appointment system.
That does not mean community pharmacies should attempt to replace GPs, mental health professionals or other specialist services.
It does mean that pharmacies may be well placed to notice when somebody needs support, offer appropriate health information, encourage helpful changes and signpost or refer when necessary.
Clinical knowledge matters enormously, but so do trust, continuity, privacy and the feeling that somebody has genuinely listened.
Healthcare Is About More Than Medicines
Exploring Prescribing Happiness did not mean rejecting traditional medicine. Medicines save lives, control symptoms, prevent complications and help millions of people live better every day.
Clinical expertise, safe prescribing and evidence-based treatment remain fundamental to good healthcare.
However, health is also shaped by factors that cannot always be addressed by a medicine alone. These may include sleep, movement, nutrition, relationships, financial pressure, loneliness, working conditions, grief, confidence, purpose and the pace of modern life.
Many people are not only asking:
“How do I treat this illness?”
They may also be quietly asking:
“How do I begin to feel better in myself?”
That is a different conversation, and perhaps community healthcare can help create space for it.
Prescribing Happiness and Whole Health
Looking back, it is fascinating to see how many of those early conversations anticipated the direction in which healthcare is now moving.
Whole health, prevention, lifestyle medicine, social prescribing and patient empowerment are increasingly discussed across health services. Yet many of the same principles were already shaping how we wanted The Health Dispensary to feel.
We were never trying to create a luxury wellness brand, promise perfect health or suggest that positive thinking could solve serious problems.
We simply believed that healthcare could feel more human.
That meant listening before making assumptions, helping people understand their health and recognising that wellbeing involves more than the absence of disease.
It meant looking at the person rather than only the symptom.
Above all, it meant recognising that small, supportive conversations can matter.
What Did the Prescribing Happiness Research Conclude?
The published study concluded that the development of the intervention was an important step towards exploring wellbeing support in a novel community pharmacy setting.
Its authors proposed that the next stage should involve gaining the perspectives of external stakeholders and assessing whether Prescribing Happiness could be delivered feasibly and adopted within future community pharmacy services.
Therefore, the paper should be understood as the beginning of a research journey rather than proof of a finished service.
The research provided a structured foundation for evaluating whether a positive psychology wellbeing intervention could be delivered acceptably and practically within community pharmacy.
What the research did
It brought together existing evidence, user feedback and positive psychology principles to create a structured six-week wellbeing intervention suitable for further evaluation in community pharmacy.
Why This Conversation Still Matters
The question behind Prescribing Happiness feels even more relevant today.
The NHS remains under enormous pressure, while chronic illness, loneliness, stress, poor sleep, obesity, inactivity and anxiety continue to affect the health of communities.
Treatment will always be essential. However, we must also ask how people can be supported earlier, before difficulties become crises and before preventable illness takes hold.
That may involve helping someone understand their medicines. It may involve encouraging movement, better sleep or a healthier routine. It may mean noticing loneliness, making an appropriate referral or simply giving somebody enough time to explain what is really troubling them.
No single pharmacy conversation can fix all the pressures in a person’s life.
But a thoughtful conversation may still become a useful first step.
Could a Pharmacy Really Prescribe Happiness?
Not in the way that a pharmacist prescribes an antibiotic, an inhaler or treatment for high blood pressure.
Happiness is not a medicine, and it cannot be promised, packaged or reduced to a simple set of instructions.
However, pharmacies can help create the conditions in which wellbeing is taken seriously. They can listen, inform, encourage, notice, signpost and support.
They can treat illness while also remembering the person experiencing it.
Nearly a decade after The Health Dispensary first opened, the original question behind Prescribing Happiness still guides our thinking:
Could healthcare help people flourish — not simply survive?
We still believe that is a question worth asking.
For us, that is what Health, Happiness and Hope has always meant.
Research and Further Reading
Original Prescribing Happiness research:
Ward JL, Sparkes A, Ricketts M, Hewlett P, Prior A-L, Hallingberg B and James DH.
Development of a Positive Psychology Well-Being Intervention in a Community Pharmacy Setting.
Pharmacy. 2023;11(1):14.
Read the full open-access research paper
View the research record on PubMed
The authors acknowledged support from Cardiff Metropolitan University, Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarships and The Health Dispensary.
Please note: Positive psychology activities and supportive pharmacy conversations are not substitutes for medical care, mental health treatment or urgent support. Anyone experiencing persistent low mood, anxiety, emotional distress or thoughts of self-harm should seek appropriate professional help.
Written by Ali Sparkes BSc (Hons), MSc Econ, FRPharmS, IP
Independent Prescribing Pharmacist and Founder of The Health Dispensary
