Helping people to look after their own health, and their family’s health also helps to manage demand on health services.
By keeping a well stocked medicine cabinet at home and choosing self care for minor ailments, you can easily help to take care of you and your families health. In doing so, you also help to reduce the strain on NHS services, as well as leaving more GP appointments available to others, helping benefit others with more serious illnesses.
Minor illnesses you can mostly treat with self-care include:
- Vomiting
- Diarrhoea
- Tickly coughs
- Sore throat
- Flu-like symptom
- Earaches
Antibiotics are not always the answer! For viral infections (e.g. coughs, colds, sore throats, flu) antibiotics are not effective at treating these illnesses, as antibiotics only work against bacterial infections. By taking antibiotics when you don’t need them, you build a resistance to the medication making it much less effective when you do need this.
Explore other treatment routes
Click on each of the buttons below to learn more about each treatment pathway, how it can help, and understand if this would be best suited for your condition.
