Pharmacy Guild, Health Minister Mark Butler strike $3bn five-year funding deal

The new agreement follows hostilities between the Pharmacy Guild and the federal government over Labor’s 60-day dispensing policy.

Australia’s community pharmacies are set to receive an additional $3bn under an agreement brokered with the Albanese government after the sector came to blows with Labor over its 60-day script scheme.

Health Minister Mark Butler and the Pharmacy Guild announced on Thursday they had struck a deal that would deliver billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to Australia’s approximately 6000 community pharmacies over the next five years.

The five-year pact is the eighth iteration of Community Pharmacy Agreement which remunerates independent pharmacies for dispensing medicines listed on the PBS and for providing programs and services, such as vaccinations.

Health Minister Mark Butler and Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey brokered the deal after coming to blows over the government’s 60-day dispensing policy. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The deal marks a break in hostilities between the Guild and Mr Butler over changes announced in the 2023 May budget to double the lengths of prescriptions for 320 common medicines – halving dispensing fees.

In response, the Guild, one of Canberra’s most powerful lobbying groups, launched a campaign opposing the policy, which culminated in a heated protest inside Parliament House and accusations by the body’s president Trent Twomey that the government was “not giving a shit” about the sector.

Hitting back at the Guild’s claim that aged-care residents would be hit with an $806 annual bill for weekly prescriptions under the plan, Health Minister Mark Butler branded the Guild’s claims as a “cynical scare campaign” designed to “scare vulnerable aged care residents”.

However, tensions between the government and the Guild have since dissipated, with Mr Butler expediting the agreement to commence from July 1, just three months later than the lobby group had proposed.

The agreement compensates pharmacies for dispensing PBS-listed medications. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The $3bn worth of funding is also just shy of the $3.3bn the Guild had requested prior to the commencement of negotiations.

Mr Butler said the agreement would deliver cheaper medicines, improve patient health outcomes and secure a strong community pharmacy sector.

“The government recognises the very important role played by community pharmacies, and the 8CPA will support them to play an even bigger role in the primary care sector,” Mr Butler said.

Professor Twomey said the Guild would now negotiate the finer details of the agreement over the coming weeks.

“We thank the government, in particular the Prime Minister and Health Minister and the Department for the months of effort and work to reach this point,” Professor Twomey said.