The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7452 p575
19 May 2007

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Bowel cancer awareness campaign kicks off

From this week, a bowel cancer awareness campaign is being piloted in 975 community pharmacies within 11 primary care trusts in England. The campaign by national charity Beating Bowel Cancer includes posters and leaflets as well as practice guidance for pharmacists (PDF 320K), which has been endorsed by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and which is being distributed with The Journal this week.

“Early diagnosis of bowel cancer is essential to ensure a positive outcome for patients,” said Hilary Whittaker, chief executive, Beating Bowel Cancer. “We need to make people aware of this huge disease and, with six million people visiting UK pharmacies every day, the pharmacy environment is ideal for an awareness campaign as it has such wide reach. We hope that it will encourage people to get any symptoms investigated, and not to hide them behind closed doors.”

Paul Gimson, lead pharmacist for long-term care at the Society, said: “The role of community pharmacists in raising awareness of particular health issues is becoming more widely recognised. We are pleased to work with Beating Bowel Cancer on this initiative to provide pharmacists with educational information which will in turn help them to advise the general public on bowel cancer symptoms and treatment.”

The following PCTs are involved in the pilot:

• Wolverhampton City
• Dudley
• Walsall
• Central and Eastern Cheshire
• Norfolk
• Richmond and Twickenham
• Devon
• Kingston
• Manchester
• Birmingham East and North
• Bristol

Beating Bowel Cancer hopes to roll-out the campaign nationally following evaluation of the pilot.


News feature p580