THE priority for the Seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement (7CPA) should be to deliver benefits to patients ahead of anyone else, according to Shadow Minister for Health, Chris Bowen.
Speaking at the Pharmacy Guild's annual Parliamentary Dinner in Canberra on Tue evening, Bowen said the outcomes for the Australian community would guide the Labor party as it considered policy questions around pharmacy.
"Frankly, not what's good for pharmacists, or what's good for doctors, but what's good for patients and the community."
Bowen said the 7CPA should focus on two key challenges - the affordability of PBS medicines along with access to primary care.
"One-in-five Australians say they wait too long for a GP appointment.
"Women and people who live in disadvantaged areas or the bush fare even worse," he said.
"Labour agrees that pharmacists can work to their full scope of practice without fragmenting or duplicating care - but should that include provision of a wider range of vaccinations? Access to the National Immunisation Program? Repeat prescriptions for some medicines?
"Ultimately those are clinical questions...again we must be guided by one principle only: how is the best interest of the patient served," Bowen said.
He also addressed the very low take-up of the 'dollar discount' in the 6CPA, and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee's recommendation to double dispensing quantities for some medicines, saying "no Government can simply ignore the recommendations of the independent PBAC."
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