In Views

Follow this topic

Bookmark

Record learning outcomes

I was heartened to see the government’s national cancer plan set out concrete ambitions for community pharmacies in England.

As you might expect, these are not front and centre in Wes Streeting’s strategy, which focuses more on improving traditional diagnostic and treatment pathways. 

But they’re in there and there is some detail behind them already, which is more than you can say for Labour’s prescribing service nigh on two years after that manifesto pledge was made.

Specific goals include ‘catch-up’ HPV vaccinations – part of the Department of Health and Social Care’s commitment to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040 – and heartburn health checks to rule out Barrett’s Oesophagus and early oesophageal cancer among patients who suffer frequent upper gastrointestinal symptoms.

The latter promise builds on the ‘sponge on a string’ testing pilot announced last summer by Boots, NHS England and diagnostics company Cyted Health, with selected branches to offer the service to frequent purchasers of over-the-counter heartburn remedies.

Another scheme that is currently operating in Boots stores gets a mention in the national cancer plan: using loyalty card purchasing data from consenting customers to assess the potential link between buying habits and early cancer symptoms. It is hoped the findings could aid the earlier diagnosis of 10 types of cancer, including bladder, colorectal, ovarian and pancreatic cancers.

We frequently highlight the entrepreneurial spirit of independent pharmacies in this publication, and quite rightly too. These cancer initiatives suggest that for some goals, the greater scale a large multiple off ers can also be an advantage.

And they demonstrate that the best ideas are often those that have pharmacists’ fingerprints on them from the get-go. As with flu vaccinations, which began as a string of locally commissioned pilots, these were not dreamt up in Whitehall but rather forged through collaboration between the pharmacy sector and academics.

If these plans do have a long-term impact on early cancer diagnosis, they could save lives as well as reframing the pharmacy offer in the country’s imagination. As National Pharmacy Association chief executive Henry Gregg said, the plan highlights that pharmacies are a “massively untapped resource”.

Nick Thayer, head of policy at the Company Chemists’ Association also chimed in, commenting: “With more pharmacies in more deprived areas, pharmacies can help drive uptake especially among underserved communities. Commissioning pharmacies to deliver more NHS vaccines… would release GP capacity and drive vaccine uptake.”

As with anything, to really capitalise on this potential will require fair funding, which is never a guarantee. But the fact these services are taking shape is grounds for optimism.