Pharmacies in southern Spain to offer screening for colon cancer from 2026 onwards

Pharmacies across the Andalucía region in southern Spain are set to play a more active role in health protection and to become more actively integrated into the public health network. The starting point was the signing in 2024 of a protocol between the Andalusian public health service (SAS) and the Andalusian council of pharmacists' associations (CACOF) to enhance the possibilities of pharmacies in prevention programmes, health education and collaboration with the regional government.

The project is currently in the pilot phase: a group of pharmacies in different Andalusian provinces is validating the qualification model by registering with the health accreditation agency (ACSA), the training materials and the operational tools. The results obtained will enable the programme to be extended to the entire network of Andalusian pharmacies.

One of the objectives of the programme is "the progressive incorporation of pharmacists into public health initiatives, such as screening, prevention, health education, visual health and vaccination", as indicated in the protocol. Now they are getting involved in the early detection of colon cancer, the most common cancer in Spain.

The president of the Andalusian council of official associations of pharmacists, Antonio Mingorance, told the newspaper ABC de Sevilla that "our will and that of the Junta is that pharmacies will be able to start carrying out this screening, which is so necessary, from next year: in fact, there are already pharmacies that are being accredited by ACSA for this purpose".

The regional government committed itself in October, following the detection of problems with breast cancer screening, to review and speed up the protocols for early detection, not only in breast cancer but also in colon cancer. This is the new role to be played by pharmacies, which are being given a key role in the public health system by the regional minister, Antonio Sanz.

Sanz said at the end of November that "before the end of the year [2025] we will launch the pilot of a programme that will directly connect doctors and pharmacists through a new communication channel that will improve safety, pharmacotherapeutic monitoring and the continuity of patient treatment".

This new programme, which will connect the pharmacy professional with the professional who prescribes the medicine, "will be installed in all pharmacies at the beginning of the year and in March will allow the pharmacist to request the renewal of treatments for chronic patients without the patient having to make an appointment or go to the health centre".

Mingorance is convinced that the Junta's decision is the right one. "The lines of collaboration with the public system are already strong and include unwanted loneliness, gender violence, Nile virus and HIV: we, the pharmacies, are health agents spread throughout the region and that every citizen has two hundred and fifty metres from their home and that they visit every week or every month," he said, adding, "We cannot afford the underutilisation of pharmacies, whose rational use decongests health centres."

The Junta de Andalucía stresses that "in recent years, Andalusian pharmacies have demonstrated their ability to generate some of these effective and sustainable solutions with the promotion of professional services that improve health outcomes, such as the personalised drug dosage system (SPD), MAPAfarma for blood pressure monitoring or assistance in new medicines (ANM), together with pioneering programmes such as AxónIctus for the early detection of atrial fibrillation and prevention of stroke, or AxónTabaKO for people to give up smoking".

"Andalucía has also been a pioneer in the collaborative dispensing of hospital medicines in community pharmacies, benefiting tens of thousands of vulnerable patients and in the implementation of projects such as PysmaSarco, which focuses on the early detection of sarcopenic obesity in the over-60s," Mingorance added.

To make all these initiatives possible, CACOF has made a firm commitment over the last decade to technology, training and research, with initiatives such as AxonFarma, a digital ecosystem that facilitates the provision of these new healthcare services, improves patient safety and constitutes a powerful Big Data tool at the service of public health.

With 18% of all registered pharmacists in Spain, Andalucía is the region with the highest number of pharmacists, ahead of Madrid and Catalonia. Of these, 67% are run by women and the average age is 49. The bulk of the profession (around 71%) works in pharmacies, but Andalusian pharmacists also work in areas such as hospital pharmacy, clinical analysis, public health, industry, teaching and research.