GOLD-COAST pharmacist Matthew Bellgrove has issued a public call for the Qld Government to reverse its recent decision not to establish a pharmacy council in the state (PD 17 Oct).
Bellgrove, who owns National Custom Compounding, said that with Qld being the only state with no separate statutory authority monitoring the sector, "pharmacies who aren't fully complying with legislation could be slipping through the cracks".
This year's Qld Parliamentary Inquiry into the establishment of a pharmacy council and transfer of pharmacy ownership decided not to recommend a Pharmacy Council, on the grounds there was no evidence such a move would result in better community outcomes.
However Bellgrove cited data presented to the Queensland Productivity Commission which showed that only 161 pharmacies were inspected in 2017/18.
At that rate the average Qld pharmacy would only be inspected once every 7.3 years - compared to much more frequent inspections in other jurisdictions.
The Parliamentary Committee noted that documented breaches in Qld were lower than other states.
Bellgrove said rather than Qld pharmacies operating in line with the legislation, it was more likely that "non-compliance is not getting picked up and reported by an under-resourced department whose people may not be aware of what to look for.
"The pharmacy sector in Queensland needs more regulation, not less...we need to weed out the unscrupulous operators," he urged.
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