Government committed to funding HMR program.
The Pharmacy Guild has just released a statement saying that its call for a moratorium on the Home Medicines Review Program “has had its desired effect of focussing the Government’s and the pharmacy sector’s minds on the issues with the HMR program”.
The move was in response to health minister Tanya Plibersek, who confirmed she has “decided against a moratorium on HMRs because reducing preventable medication misadventure is too important.
“I can assure you that through the Fifth Agreement the Government has committed to funding the HMR program through to June 2015,” she said.
Plibersek also confirmed that the HMR program is showing a level of uptake greater than predicted, meaning that the current expenditure to 31 December was $13.04 million against the full year forecast of $8.6 million.
“This is a demand-driven program but it also appears that there are some practices that are not consistent with the policy intent of the program, such as a large proportion of reviews being conducted outside the patient’s home,” she said.
The minister said that in December the department and the Guild agreed to introduce a range of measures which would “support HMRs being conducted within the intent and spirit of the program,” with these changes being implemented by the department, the Guild and Medicare as a matter of urgency.
