THE National Asthma Council of Australia has called for training and funding for pharmacists around asthma management including written asthma action plans (WAAPs).
The message is loud and clear in the Council's in-depth exploratory paper Current practice and new approaches in asthma: Perspectives of asthma practitioners and patients, which was funded by AstraZeneca.
Pharmacists figure as the key health professionals along with nurses in one of the five high-level objectives in the National Asthma Strategy 2018.
"Workforce roles and responsibilities were examined, with an emphasis on increasing the role of pharmacists, and practice nurses in asthma management."
The report recommended "an asthma medication review system, greater prescriber access to dispensing data, and pharmacist inhaler technique remuneration."
"The pharmacist is the professional that people would see more often than a GP because they are getting their repeats and they can check inhaler technique," said one contributor referencing such a system operating in Denmark.
With around 50 references to the role of pharmacists in asthma management there are too many to describe here - access the paper at assets.nationalasthma.org.au.
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