FEDERAL Health Minister Greg Hunt has made a commitment to build into the Seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement (7CPA) "the expanded scope of practice, where pharmacy will be involved increasingly in preventive health."
Hunt was addressing a breakfast at Parliament House in Canberra launching the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia's (PSA's) report into the future of pharmacists' roles toward 2023 (PD yesterday).
During his speech, Hunt also committed the Government to involving the PSA as co-signatories to 7CPA and explained that the expanded scope of practice would mean that "pharmacy will be involved increasingly in preventive health, whether that's across the range of activities such as immunisation -- although we'll need the states to agree in each particular case.
"That will mean that ultimately, as we expand the role of pharmacists in preventive health, we will keep more people out of hospital.
"We will keep more people healthy -- whether it's diabetes or bowel cancer checks, whether it's all of these areas, at the end of the day you will help people across Australia save lives and protect lives," the Minister said.
Commenting on the PSA's report, Hunt said the Government supported the concept of pharmacists broadening their contribution to public health in Australia by practising to their full scope of training.
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