Chemists ‘can save 6.5m trips to doctor’, says Pharmacy Guild

Pharmacists are asking premiers and chief ministers at Friday’s national cabinet meeting to support their push to be ­allowed to prescribe drugs for common conditions.

Pharmacy Guild of Australia president Trent Twomey. Picture: Allen Mechen

Pharmacists are asking premiers and chief ministers at Friday’s national cabinet meeting to support their push to be ­allowed to prescribe drugs for common conditions, which they say would avoid 6.5 million visits to the doctor a year.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia commissioned accountancy firm EY to carry out economic analysis on national financial and time-saving benefits if pharmacist prescribing was adopted nationwide, an issue that NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pushing via national cabinet.

The analysis has been sent to all premiers and chief ministers under cover of a letter arguing that if community pharmacists were allowed to work to their full scope of practice and prescribe medicines such as antibiotics, contraception and antidepressants for uncomplicated conditions, it would provide “a solution to the present crisis” of overwhelmed hospitals and a critical lack of ­access to GPs.

“For the first time now we can put dollar figures to the contribution that pharmacists can make to the Australian healthcare system,” said Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey.

“The pharmacy profession is standing here with solutions that deliver savings. We’re highly skilled and we’re highly trained. We can do more and we should do more.”

The development comes as a national survey of medical trainees pointed to a system cracking under pressure, and as timely care in emergency departments and access to GPs dips sharply.

National cabinet will be presented with the report of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce as premiers weigh in on primary care reform amid the collapse of bulk billing. The federal government wants to overhaul the system so nurses and allied health can be funded to play a bigger role in primary care.

Meanwhile, the Australian Medical Association warned the annual Medical Training Survey from medical regulator the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency – released on Wednesday – pointed to a “pressure cooker” hospital system.

The survey shows 20 per cent of medical trainees are considering a career outside medicine, and two thirds work excessive hours, including 10 per cent averaging more than 60 hours a week.

The Pharmacy Guild is pushing pharmacy prescriptions to the top of its agenda as GPs ramp up their campaign against practices being subject to payroll tax on Medicare earnings of GP contractors. Doctors are warning the expansion of tax will kill off bulk billing and could wipe out 20 per cent of GP businesses.

Pharmacists in Queensland can now prescribe antibiotics for UTIs, with a pilot in North Queensland opening up prescribing for a much wider range of conditions, in line with practice in the UK and Canada. NSW has followed suit and introduced a pharmacist-prescribing trial. “That in essence takes pressure off GPs,” Mr Perrottet said ahead of national cabinet. “I do think this is something should be rolled out across the country.”

The Pharmacy Guild said it was clear there was a pressing need to reduce the pressure on GPs and EDs. The EY report finds pharmacy prescriptions for common conditions – including UTIs, ear nose and throat infections, influenza, asthma, hypertension, depression and anxiety, as well as performing a wider range of vaccinations – would result in an economic benefit of $5.1bn annually to ­governments across the nation, including reducing state and territory healthcare costs by $245m a year and commonwealth costs by $452m annually.

It found at least 6.2 million visits to GPs could be avoided, hospital stays would be slashed by more than 350,000 days a year, and 52,000 hours would be freed up in ED capacity annually.

However, Royal Australian College of GPs president Nicole Higgins urged state leaders to ­reject the proposal warning that pharmacists working in retail had sales targets and were therefore at risk of over-prescribing.