Pharmacy reform includes pharmacists in general practice
A pharmacy reform review has recommended an $80 million investment in pharmacists in general practice and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, alongside changes to pharmacy ownership, funding and competition rules.
The Grattan Institute recommendations include ending Community Pharmacy Agreements or at least basing them on public evidence, simplifying dispensing fees, removing restrictions on where new pharmacies can be established and removing restrictions on who can own pharmacies.
The review also calls for the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority to determine pharmacy remuneration, with pharmacies required to provide necessary data, and for the ACCC to conduct a market study of the community pharmacy sector and design safeguards to protect competition.
Grattan Institute recommendations
Other measures include tighter price disclosure arrangements so medicine discounts are more effectively passed on to governments and patients, and rigorous large-scale national trials of prescribing for other minor aliments, smoking cessation and collaborative chronic disease management.
The review supports national rollout of pharmacist prescribing for uncomplicated access urinary tract infection prescribing, while recommending rigorous large-scale trials before wider implementation of most other new pharmacy services.
It also highlights the Pharmacy Guild’s political donations of $2.5 million over the past five years and the impact that has had on policy decisions.
Royal Australian College of GPs President Dr Michael Wright said the findings underscored the need for evidence-based pharmacy reform. “This report highlights a number of issues within the pharmacy sector requiring greater transparency, and also ensuring future reform is delivered safely,” he said.
Wright said the college supported investment in non-dispensing pharmacists embedded in general practices and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations. He said integrated teams support medication safety, communication and continuity of care.
“Patient safety must remain the overriding priority. Expanding healthcare services should be driven by evidence, appropriate governance and clear benefits for patients,” Wright said.
The review also says that if investment and reforms focused on urgent care centres and multidisciplinary general practices prove cost-effective, the case for overlapping services in community pharmacists will weaken.
