AUSTRALIA'S community pharmacy network has the capacity to play a greater role in the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines if needed, Pharmacy Guild of Australia National President, Trent Twomey (pictured), believes.
Speaking during the Guild's COVID-19 vaccination (COVAX) update webinar, National COVAX Taskforce Coordinator, Lieutenant General John Ferwen, said he wanted to create a "commander's reserve" workforce that could be mobilised quickly to boost immunisation efforts in hotspot areas.
Twomey told the General to "view the community pharmacy network as your reserve workforce."
"We can flex up, and we can flex down," he said.
"The network does that very well, if we look at our peak two months - generally Jul and Dec - they're often double what we would do in Feb.
"The community pharmacy network has that built-in agility to be able to bring workforce on and flex up to do things if needed. "We don't need to have a big government solution to have agility to flex up and down as you need, we can use the private sector to do that and partner with you."
Twomey noted the Guild was working to ensure pharmacists are permitted to administer COVAX shots outside of the pharmacy setting, and to secure funding to enable them to act as a reserve workforce in areas of need.
Meanwhile, Twomey told the webinar that Primary Health Networks had "picked up their game" when it came to delivering personal protective equipment (PPE) from the National Medical Stockpile, following initial delays in supplying it to community pharmacies in Sydney.
"They are doing a better job, and we appreciate that," he said.
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