Contraceptive pill trial allowing women in NSW to bypass doctor to be made permanent

The trial will be made permanent, meaning women can access resupplies of their oral contraception pills from the pharmacy in a bid to combat to pressure on GPs.

A trial allowing women to access the oral contraceptive pill over the counter at their local chemist will be made permanent, in a bid to keep pressure off NSW’s under-pressure GP network.

The year-long trial, which allowed women to obtain a resupply of the pill from trained community pharmacists without having to see a doctor, will be made permanent from Saturday, while the age eligibility will be expanded.

The move comes in the wake of pointed comments from NSW Health Minister Ryan Park towards his federal counterparts over a shortage of GPs – a federal responsibility – which he says is placing extra pressure on his state’s health system.

“By empowering pharmacists to undertake consultations for these common conditions and medications, we can help improve access to primary care services which may relieve the pressure on the state’s busy GPs and our hospital system,” Mr Park said, in another veiled swipe at his federal counterparts.

NSW Minister for Health Ryan Park speaks during Question Time in the Legislative Assembly at New South Wales Parliament House in Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

“It has been amazing to see over a thousand pharmacists across the state sign up to take part in each of the trial’s three phases so far, and this has prompted us to look at more ways they can help our communities.”

The trial, which began in September last year, included more than 500 pharmacies across NSW, with more than 2000 consultations held in that time.

The age eligibility criteria will also be expanded from 18 to 35 years old, to 49 years at the upper range.

Women who have been using the pill continuously for the last two years and need to refill their script will be able to get their supply extended for up to another 12 months without having to revisit their doctor for a prescription.

Mr Park last week pointed to figures showing there was 215 less GPs across NSW in 2023 than in 2019, with the Minister saying the shortfall of practitioners was “slamming our state’s emergency departments”.

The trial started in September last year.

That coincided with an increase in presentations to emergency departments in NSW, with 795,817 attendances in the April to June quarter, up 3.3 per cent from the same quarter last year, with the state government fearing the difficulty of seeing a GP is forcing patients to wait until their symptoms are dire enough to present to an ED.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler on Sunday conceded he was “desperately worried” about the declining number of GPs.

“We don’t have enough GPs (and) that’s just going to get worse. One in two medical graduates used to choose general practice a decade ago, it’s now about one in seven. We need a lot more medical graduates choosing general practice,” he said.

He said the federal government was bringing more GPs in from overseas than before the Covid pandemic and was looking at more ways to entice students to study general practice.