Pharmacy Daily | Guild stalling progress?

PHARMACISTS are failing to reach their full professional potential because the Pharmacy Guild of Australia wants to maintain the status quo, a former civil servant believes.

Retired chair of the South Australian Generational Health Review and former News Limited General Manager, John Menadue, accused the Guild of corralling pharmacists into being shopkeepers rather than health professionals.

In a blog post published in the wake of the Federal Government's decision not to allow doctors to provide scripts for double supplies, Menadue said the Guild's successful lobbying had stymied the profession's progress.

"Pharmacists are the most under-utilised health professionals in the country [and] the Guild is happy to keep it that way," he said.

Menadue said the current model of community pharmacy was unsustainable and called on dissatisfied pharmacists to challenge the status quo.

"Some pharmacists have expressed to me their dissatisfaction that their professional skills are not fully utilised and extended," he said.

"But despite the interest in increased professionalisation of many pharmacists there is not yet sufficient will amongst pharmacists generally to make the change that is necessary?

"They let the Pharmacy Guild of Australia lead them by the nose."

Menadue said the current pharmacy model was "comfortable and financially rewarding for owners", but needed to be challenged to create a focus on preventative health, with pharmacists playing a greater role in disease prevention and multidisciplinary healthcare teams.

"It is quite remarkable that the Guild has consistently opposed direct relationships developing between GPs and accredited pharmacists," he said.

"It insists that the relationship must be with the patient's nominated community pharmacy.

"This is quite contrary to normal health referral practices. The Guild is a serious barrier to the advancement of professionalism in pharmacy," Menadue concluded.