Assessing cancer symptoms and referring patients to professionals is the role of pharmacists.

 Under new NHS proposals to speed up cancer diagnosis, people with possible indicators of cancer will be able to get evaluated and sent for a hospital visit in high street pharmacies.

Those in England who have lumps, a cough, bleeding, or other cancer clinical signs will no longer need to go to a GP prior to actually being referred to a specialist under the new scheme. It will relieve some of the pressure on overworked family doctors and provide patients with another option.

NHS England's chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, unveiled the effort in a speech to thousands of senior health-care workers at the organization's annual conference on Tuesday.

Pritchard described it as a huge breakthrough that will help the organisation reach its goal of raising the number of malignancies detected at an early, more treatable stage in England from half to three-quarters by 2028. In comparison to other European countries, the United Kingdom has a lengthy history of failing to detect cancer early.

Many pharmacists already have expressed an interest in being among the first to be trained for this new position. They'll be able to send clients to diagnostic testing like a scan or an endoscopy if they suspect their symptoms are cancer-related.

The initiative will be piloted in an undetermined number of areas across England at first.

GP leaders, on the other hand, warned that unless pharmacists are trained to the same high degree as family doctors in cancer diagnosis, they may overlook instances.

Individuals who may have liver cancer, which is linked to strong alcohol usage, will be able to get scanned in the rear of trucks starting this month, according to Pritchard. These will be placed outside GP practises, town centres, supermarkets, and homeless hostels and food banks to encourage groups who, like men and those in impoverished areas, generally do not seek counsel about cancer symptoms until months after they arise.

A similar campaign has resulted in the detection of many more cases of lung cancer than if the persons concerned had ultimately gone to their GP to discuss their worries. NHS England is also establishing a new genetic testing programme for breast cancer gene mutations among persons of Jewish ancestry, who are 10 times more susceptible than the general population to have them.

"We want to make it as easy as possible for those most at risk to get vital, life-saving tests," the NHS chief said in Liverpool. "From liver trucks travelling around the country to genetic testing and high-street checks, we want to make it as easy as possible for those most at risk to get vital, life-saving tests."

The plans, according to cancer groups, could lead to faster detection. "We have the potential to help diagnose more cancers at an earlier, more curable stage by changing how people engage with the health care," said Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK.

Pharmacist assessments, according to Nick James, a professor of prostate and bladder cancer research at the Institute of Cancer Research, could improve the NHS's dismal track record on early diagnosis: "In the United Kingdom, one at every three malignancies is discovered in A&E. Many of these patients' cancers will have spread and they will have a worse chance of survival.