The Ministry of Health and the General Pharmaceutical Council are working on an agreement that will allow community pharmacists to undertake the course "Addressing smoking in Primary Care"; a formative plan aimed at training health professionals within the training framework of the Strategy for Health Promotion and Prevention in the National Health System.
Together with other health professionals, this will boost the efforts against smoking that are already being made by the more than 56,000 pharmacists working in the 22,220 community pharmacies.
According to Jesús Aguilar, "the fight against tobacco is one of the most effective ways of helping to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases, and we pharmacists play a fundamental role in this task, helping to improve the health of citizens and reducing the significant costs to the health system".