Pharmacy Daily | Guild DoHA chemo battle

THE Pharmacy Guild has slammed “flawed thinking” in a Senate Committee report delivered on Fri, which follows a last minute submission by the Department of Health and Ageing over chemotherapy funding. The Department argued that because the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement included some compensation for the impact of the 2010 MoU with Medicines Australia, chemotherapy funding should be sourced from that money. The Guild says this is “completely fallacious” because the funding of the costs entailed in delivering specialised chemotherapy pharmacy services is provided for completely separately to the 5CPA. “The Agreement makes absolutely no mention of chemotherapy and contains no funding provisions for these services,” the Guild said in a communication to members. The price disclosure MoU related compensation in the Fifth Agreement is in the form of program and incentives funding and applies across the entire community pharmacy sector, not just the 1-2% of pharmacies which deliver chemotherapy services. “The overwhelming majority of the medicines impacted by the price disclosure MoU have nothing to do with chemotherapy and if the Department was being upfront and transparent, it would break down the $277 million in MoU compensation according to the impacted PBS medicines,” the Guild communication said. Reporting of the Senate Committee report on Sat has drawn a swift response,with Guild President Kos Sclavos writing to the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times citing “seriously muddled thinking” in the report. He said that while the 5CPA does provide some funding to help offset the impact of PBS reforms, “it was never intended to pay for the additional costs entailed in chemotherapy services” which are funded separately. “The Guild welcomes the Government’s responsible approach,” Sclavos wrote, saying there would be a serious impact on the viability of all pharmacies if if the Senate Committee’s “flawed thinking” were to become a reality. The Guild has told members that it “will not be bullied” on this matter, with high level legal advice received that “comprehensively and definitely” concludes the govt has no authority to fund the chemo shortfall from the Agreement.

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