Pharmacy minimum hours
May 27, 2014
THE Pharmacy Guild of Australia
has called for the inclusion of
pharmacy in the Productivity
Commission Issues paper ‘Relative
Costs of Doing Business in Australia:
Retail Trade Industry’, submitting
that non-standard hours are
required.
The submission said pharmacy
was a specialist retail industry and
that growth had declined due to
increased expenses and the impact
of price disclosure.
It said pharmacies faced high
operating costs while having a
limited ability to pass on underlying
costs due to prices being regulated.
“Rental costs continue to rise,
outstripping other business costs
and CPI increases.
“Labour costs have risen
substantially, in part due to the
inflexibility of the modern award
system.”
The Guild submission said
extended and seven day a week
trading patterns were required to
meet the expectations and health
care demands of customers.
“The Guild shares the concerns
of other retailers with regard to
the impact of the penalty rates
contained within the modern
awards for retail, including the
Pharmacy Industry Award 2010
(PIA).
“The Guild strongly supports the
need within the PIA and other retail
awards for the facilitative capacity
for employers and employees to
agree to a minimum shift that is
less than three hours.”
The Guild’s submission said that
pharmacies contributed around
$15.3b to the Australian economy.
National president of the
Pharmaceutical Society of
Australia (PSA) Grant Kardachi
said the suggestion that
professional services such as
dose administration aids might
be affected due to the reduced
viability of the sector was of great
concern.
Professional Pharmacists Australia
said it was disappointed by the
submission with president Dr Geoff
March saying a better solution
would be a whole-of-pharmacy
approach to the CPA reform, with
stakeholder cooperation.
“The answer to the crisis in
pharmacy is not to cut pharmacists’
pay and lobby for owners to
employ pharmacists for less than
three hours.”
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