Pharmacy Daily | Expand Vic vaccination role: PSA

TRAINED pharmacist immunisers in Victoria should be empowered to administer the full range of vaccines they are training to provide, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia Victorian Branch President, John Jackson, believes.

In the organisation's pre State Budget submission, Jackson said it was crucial for pharmacists who have undergone vaccination training to be able to administer all routine vaccines, including for pneumococcal, varicella zoster, influenza type B and COVID-19 vaccines.

The PSA said boosting the range of vaccines available through pharmacies would help increase uptake and slow the spread of outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases.

"As trained pharmacist immunisers already have the skills and infrastructure to provide this service, this proposal could be implemented through simple amendments to the Victorian pharmacist administered vaccination guidelines," he said.

"Increased access to vaccinations by more Victorians will reduce disease burden associated with vaccine-preventable diseases, reduce wait time for patients and increase access in rural and remote areas.

"Pharmacists have been immunising in Victoria since Jun 2016 and have demonstrated that they have the skills and competence necessary to do so."

Jackson called on the Victorian Government to invest in pharmacy services to reduce medicine-related harm, including $2.7 million a year to employ pharmacists in state-run residential aged care facilities, and $7 million to boost medicines safety in hospitals.

"Our recent Medicine Safety: Aged Care report showed 98 per cent of residents in aged-care facilities have at least one medicine related problem and 80% are prescribed potentially inappropriate medicines," he said.

"Having pharmacists embedded in RACF will see the reduction in hospitalisations from medicine-related adverse events and the reduction in the use of psychotropic medicines and chemical restraints improving the quality of life for residents.

"We also call on the government to allocate $7 million to provide seven-day, extended hours clinical pharmacist services in public hospitals which will reduce medicine misadventure associated with transitions of care.

"People with complex medical problems are admitted at all times of day and all days of the week and it is not acceptable that a patient admitted to hospital on a Sat evening for example will not receive timely pharmacist review as they would if admitted on a Tue morning."

Echoing the views of Pharmacy Guild of Australia Victorian Branch President, Anthony Tassone (PD 01 Dec), Jackson also used the pre-budget submission to call on the Andrews Government to establish the role of a Victorian Chief Pharmacist.