POLICY settings need to be adjusted to combat the growing number of medicines supply shortages being experienced across the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), former Commonwealth Department of Health Secretary, Jane Halton, warns.
Speaking as part of panel discussion at the Australian Pharmacy Professional Conference (APP) last week, Halton, who is now the Independent Chair of the Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association (GBMA) highlighted concerns over medicines shortages.
"The challenge we've got in a world of global shortage, there are threats to the supply of medicines in Australia," she said.
"Since the Therapeutic Goods Administration's (TGA's) been tracking this in the last two years, there's been 21 medicines shortages in F1.
"Supply reliability is something we worry about, and I would argue that the current structures in F2 are actually going to make that worse."
Halton warned that if Australia could not access supplies of essential medicines, the nation would struggle to continue its "proud record" as having one of the best health systems in the world.
"We need to make sure that we get equitable access to all of those [PBS] medicines," she said.
"[And] if our current policy settings are actually causing difficulty in delivering that certainty we need to have that conversation."
Pharmacy Guild of Australia National President, Trent Twomey, also flagged concerns about supply shortages, during the session, noting the number one cause of medicines misadventure in Australia was patients running out of their medicines.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 26 May 21
To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 26 May 21
