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Bowel Screening Awareness - Pharmacy Panels

As part of the ongoing communications work to support the delivery of the Bowel Screening Programme, the opportunity is again being taken to advertise in the large poster panel spaces which appear in pharmacies in communities across Scotland.

The pharmacy panel advertising will appear from 15 August to 2 October 2011, with each pharmacy having a choice of three styles of poster to be displayed, available to view online at www.healthscotland.com/documents/2066.aspx. Each uses the strapline: “I’ve/We’ve done the test. Have you?”.

This is the second year running that the Bowel Screening Programme has been able to advertise this way following the complete roll-out of the service.

The Bowel Screening Programme is the first to be offered to both men and women and targets those aged between 50 and 74 in Scotland. For approximately every 650 people invited for regular screening, one bowel cancer death will be prevented. In Scotland this will mean the screening programme will prevent at least 150 deaths from bowel cancer each year.

Eligible men and women are posted a guaiac-based faecal occult blood test kit (FOBT) which is simple to complete at home. This involves collecting 2 samples from each of 3 separate bowel movements. The kit is returned in a pre paid envelope to the central screening centre in Dundee and tested for hidden traces of blood in the stool. Individuals who have a positive FOBT result are referred to their local hospital for assessment and, where appropriate, offered a colonoscopy as the first line of investigation. Each pharmacy involved in displaying these panel adverts will also be receiving copies of the ‘Know the Facts’ leaflet to help staff and customers better understand what is involved in the screening programme. Pharmacies will also be informed of the availability of the DVD and that this short film can be viewed on-line, is available in different languages, and carries subtitles and BSL.

Pharmacies are being advised that additional copies of the leaflets as well as flyers, posters and a DVD can be obtained from nhs.healthscotland-publications@nhs.net. Further information about the programme is available from the Scottish Bowel Screening Centre Helpline on 0800 0121 833.