THE Pharmacy Guild of Australia has highlighted a 2% increase in annual patient visits to pharmacies across Australia, saying the figures reflect the public's trust in community pharmacies and recognition of the importance of the increasing range of services pharmacies provide.
Acting National President of the Pharmacy Guild, Trent Twomey, cited the "latest figures" as showing there were more than 449 million individual patient visits annually, versus 440 million visits previously.
"The figures also show that on average, every person visits a community pharmacy 18 times each year in metropolitan, rural and remote locations," he said.
"The accessibility of these pharmacies, which are often open after hours and on weekends, means patients can see a healthcare professional when GP clinics may be closed.
"It also reflects the growing range of professional services available through community pharmacies and the community's whole-hearted acceptance of getting these services from their trusted community pharmacy."
The Acting Guild President also hailed the success of pharmacy vaccinations, adding that having pharmacists work to their full scope of practice was a "win-win for the community and the broader health sector...there is so much more that we can, and should be doing to help patients".
As well as vaccinations pharmacists were benefiting the community with the provision of other support such as medicine reviews and a wide range of health screening services.
He said full-scope pharmacist services could involve a form of "controlled pharmacist supply" which would allow access of patients to ongoing treatment with medicines for management of chronic disease, or treatment of an acute infection under a validated protocol.
Twomey contrasted the pharmacy visit statistics with 2018 data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare which showed there were 381,000 visits to a general practitioner daily, equating to an average of just under 140 million visits each year - or just under a third of the figure for pharmacies.
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