AUSTRALIA'S current 'one-size-fits-all" approach to delivering pharmacy care discriminates against rural and remote communities, according to a newly formed national rural pharmacy organisation.
Rural Pharmacy Network Australia (RPNA) has written to rural MPs, describing the "deteriorating state of health care in the bush, and outlining what is required to empower community pharmacy to help tackle the crisis".
Fred Hellqvist, pharmacy proprietor from Dover in Tasmania, is co-chair of the group, said "community pharmacists are chronically under-utilised in rural healthcare, despite having the highest patient contact rate of all rural Primary Health Care Providers.
"There is so much more that rural community pharmacists could be doing," he added, with the organisation identifying key priorities such as a "comprehensive suite" of rural and remote workforce incentives, reform of the Rural Pharmacy Maintenance Allowance, loadings on government funded pharmacy services such as HMRs, MedsChecks and Clinical Interventions, financial support for Medication Reconciliation for patients transitioning into new care settings, and a potential Rural Ailments Scheme.
"We want to support our rural GP colleagues and friends through better opportunities to contribute to the care of more complex patients," Hellqvist said.
"By working with GPs in a more formal and ultimately much more productive basis than now, we can not only improve patients' pharmaceutical care but we can also help ensure massively overworked rural GPs are relieved from some of the workload that currently interferes with their ability to lead and coordinate primary care," he added.
Peter Crothers from The Towers Drug Co Pharmacy in Bourke, NSW is also a member of the RPNA, and highlighted the difficulty of attracting and retaining staff.
"Rural communities need pharmacists who are actually members of the community, not endless locum rosters and fly-in fly-out contractors who never fit in."
He said rural owners were increasingly required to offer better pay, extended paid leave, free housing and transport and other incentives out of their own pockets.
The RPNA argues that current pharmacy remuneration structures assume an "average" patient and does not allow for the more complex patient situations that are routinely encountered in the bush.
The group is also calling for a seat at this month's "without prejudice" roundtable meeting of 7CPA stakeholders in Canberra.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 18 Jul 19
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