Pharmacy Daily | Flagship programs neglected

PROMINENT pharmacists from universities across Australia have expressed their disappointment at the scrapping of two flagship professional pharmacy programs covering chronic disease from the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement. According to Professor Carol Armour of the University of Sydney, the two key programs, the Diabetes Medication Assistance Service (DMAS) and Pharmacy Asthma Management Service (PAMS) were developed by pharmacists for community pharmacy and represented significant investment by the sector. PAMS was developed from the Second through the to the Fourth Agreement, while DMAS was developed through the Third and Fourth Agreements, and both have now been left high and dry without any ongoing funding. An open letter from Armour and other colleagues including Gregory Peterson of the University of Tasmania, Lynne Emmerton from the University of Queensland, Kay Stewart from Monash University and Jeff Hughes of the Curtin University of Technology, slams the move, saying “How can this be? “The absence of ongoing funding for these two programs was announced at the end of a series of pilot and randomised controlled implementation trials, all of which demonstrated positive improvements in patient health in primary care as a result of structured pharmacist interventions.” According to the programs’ development teams, until funding was cut off both schemes had produced significant mprovements in patient health outcomes “equivalent to adding [a] new therapy, at a much lower cost than adding new drugs to the PBS. “Indeed, the services are highly cost effective. Importantly, patients have appreciated the value of these services and how they fill a gap in, or complement diabetes or asthma care delivered by other health care professionals,” the statement said. The two programs included pharmacist remuneration, which according to the group, was in keeping with modern trends of moving pharmacy away from a purely product focus to a more intergrated model of medication management. “At a time when we are so worried about not only costs, but also the increased burden of chronic disease, it would seem that these services should be integral to our primary care strategy,” they said. “The scrapping of these professional services represents a lost opportunity for both the profession and the community to make better use of its health care workforce in combating and managing chronic disease. “In addition, it contradicts the recommendations of the Australia’s Health Workforce Research report,” the statement added. The pharmacist academics are urging their colleagues from across the industry to “take any opportunity to lobby decision makers and advocate for the need to integrate pharmacists into the health-care team in delivering chronic disease management for the benefit of the community, the government and the profession”.

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