Pharmacy Daily | Aged care to provide opportunities

MORE than 1,200 full-time equivalent (FTE) pharmacists are likely to be embedded in aged care facilities over the next three to four years, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) National Vice President, Dr Shane Jackson, believes.

Speaking at the PSA's national conference last month, Jackson said the profession would need to take a flexible approach to designing models to implement embedded pharmacists, to ensure facilities "can engage the best provider for whatever they need, and that that's matched to whoever the practitioner is".

"There are some aged care facilities out there who want to be able to directly employ a pharmacist," he said.

"There are some pharmacists out there that want to be directly employed, [and] there's also a lot of pharmacists who don't want a direct employment model... they want to be employed by a community pharmacy."

Jackson told delegates that the program was likely to require 1,200 to 1,500 FTEs once it is fully implemented in the next three to four years.

"We're not saying that we're going to pour 1,200 people out of the hospital, out of community pharmacy, [or] consultant pharmacy on 01 Jan 2023," he said.

"I don't think anyone's expecting that - I think what we're expecting is a phased implementation over a three- to four-year period.

"Over time, I expect we're looking at 1,000-plus FTEs in aged care, which when you look at it in terms of bodies, is probably 2,000 or more people working in residential aged care.

"That's a third branch of the workforce, and it creates a really attractive option for people to be able to continue to work in general practice and aged care, or community pharmacy and aged care.

"From an employer or group's perspective this is a great opportunity to expand the workforce, to develop teams, to have a mentorship structure and actually to attract the best and brightest talent.

"It's a great opportunity and I think we should all think about how we can do it, and how we can do it well."