The National Police and the Civil Guard will exchange training and information with the network of 22,102 pharmacies throughout Spain to reinforce the police work of protection and assistance to those most vulnerable social groups, such as the elderly, victims of gender violence or minors. age in risky situations such as abuse or alcoholism. For this they will also have the collaboration of the Official Pharmacists' Colleges and the General Council itself.
The Secretary of State for Security of the Ministry of the Interior and the General Council of Official Colleges of Pharmacists (CGCOF) They have signed a collaboration agreement under which the pharmaceutical profession will exchange information and efforts in the development of specific preventive programs of the Security Forces and Bodies aimed at vulnerable people.
By virtue of this agreement, signed by the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Pérez, and the president of the CGCOF, Jesús Aguilar, the National Police and the Civil Guard, they will have the collaboration of the network of community pharmacies to spread messages and informative material with self-protection and prevention councils aimed at these vulnerable groups, taking advantage of the accessibility, closeness and trust of citizens in community pharmacies.
Both the National Police and the Civil Guard will designate an interlocutor to channel the exchange of information with professionals in the sector and coordinate the conduct of reciprocal training activities on those risks that threaten the safety of the most vulnerable population groups.
It is precisely this vulnerability that turns members of these social groups into regular users of pharmacies, whose professionals are usually the first to detect risky symptoms in the case of the elderly, victims of gender violence, and minor victims of ill-treatment. or with alcohol problems, as well as the disappearance of people who, for no apparent reason, stop going to the establishment.
Thanks to the agreement, the experts of the National Police and Civil Guard will advise professionals to better detect these alarm signals, and agile channels will be created so that this information reaches the appropriate police units as soon as possible, so that it is possible to enable whatever before means of prevention or aid.
The collaboration proposal between the Security Forces and Bodies and the pharmaceutical professionals started from the General Council of Pharmacists, who in May 2019 proposed to the Secretary of State for Security the collaboration of the pharmacy network in actions of common interest aimed at people older people and victims of sexist violence.
This proposal was accepted by the Secretary of State for Security, which valued not only the possibilities offered by pharmacies for the dissemination of messages, but also to generate such notices of risky situations, given their social roots in the environment they serve. , as well as extending to other areas, such as minors or non-voluntary disappearances of people.
The result of this agreement is that the National Police, Civil Guard and Pharmacists, three professions with high social recognition, will join efforts to protect vulnerable groups.
