Providing patient care in community pharmacies in Spain

To review the current status of Spanish community pharmacy, both in practice and research terms, and analyze its future trends.

Spain has a social security system where all citizens receive health care, social services, and pensions. All medical care and surgery are free for citizens; however, community pharmacies in Spain are privately owned. There are geographic and population standards for the establishment of new pharmacies, resulting in an average of 1 pharmacy per 2000 residents. Almost all pharmacies offer the same services: compounding, weight and blood pressure measurement, and cholesterol and glucose testing. There are also other, less-implemented services, such as methadone supply or directed observed treatments. Most of these services are freely provided, except compounding (fee for service), methadone, and directed observed treatments. University pharmacy practice departments do not exist in Spain, which leads to scarce research in this area.

Efforts have been made to describe and measure the prevalence of negative clinical outcomes produced by pharmacotherapy and create an operational procedure to provide pharmacotherapy follow-up.

Spain has many community pharmacies, but there is little pharmacy practice research. Some advanced cognitive services exist, but few are being remunerated.