A new resource to help pharmacists increase their awareness of early symptoms of bowel cancer has been released by the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE).
Pharmacy workers are often the “first port of call for patients seeking advice about symptoms”, which means that they have an important role in early detection, it said.
The resource “Cancer: Supporting people with early diagnosis”, aims to help pharmacists enhance their understanding of signs of the disease and how they can effectively “improve rates of early diagnosis by identifying people who may need referral”.
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Patients may be “buying over-the-counter medicines for constipation, diarrhoea or abdominal pain”, which can be an early sign of the illness.
The symptoms can be easily ignored with patients “dismissing red flag symptoms as common digestive upsets or feeling too embarrassed to speak up”.
Pharmacy teams are “best placed to start those conversations, picking up more information and a better understanding of what is going on” said CPPE
Early detection
Bowel cancer is very common, but can be treatable if caught early on with “90%” of cases being treatable if the polyps are spotted early.
CPPE said: “Remember: early detection doesn’t just improve outcomes – it saves lives.”
It comes after Boots announced in February it was taking part in a major study using customers loyalty card data to “reveal subtle trends” which can help spot the “early warning signs of cancer”.
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Some 3000 volunteers are taking part in the study which will analyse the “the purchase history of people diagnosed with cancer with that of healthy participants”.
The government also announced that month that they intend for pharmacies to play a greater role in the shift to preventive care.
This included heartburn tests, catch-up HPV jabs, use of loyalty card data to spot early cancer signs and a wider roll-out of weight loss jabs.
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The National Cancer Plan said, “community pharmacies are vital in the neighbourhood health service and will help our approach reach into people’s local high streets.”
