Pharmacy Daily | What’s the drug score PBS?

FURTHER cuts to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme could threaten the best subsidised medicines program in the world, according to a statement from Medicines Australia. The comments come on the back of the release of the PBS Scorecard by The Medicines Partnership of Australia, which found that for the year ended 30 September 2011, growth in government expenditure on the PBS was 5.7%. Once adjusted for inflation, this represented growth of around 2% in real terms. “This is a sustainable level of growth, and existing arrangements such as price disclosure will ensure expenditure remains well under control,” Medicines Australia said in a statement. Further price reductions, unrelated to PBS reforms, are also set to take effect on 01 April 2012, resulting in an average drop of 23% across more than 200 drugs. “On all the evidence, PBS growth is running at a completely acceptable rate, and continues to provide huge health benefits for the nation,” Medicines Australia said. Additional findings in the Scorecard report show that the ten year average growth in the PBS over the last decade was one of the lowest since the 1980’s. As such, the current growth rate, according to Medicines Australia, “reaffirms that the long term downward trend is continuing”. In addition, over the last decade PBS expenditure as a proportion of GDP remained steady at between 0.6% and 0.65%, below the 0.7% forecast to hold steady between 2010 and 2020, in the Intergenerational Report released last year. “The PBS actually represents the most cost-effective element of health expenditure, and should not be subjected to further savings measures,” Medicines Australia said.

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