Pharmacy Daily | SHPA blasts Guild, 5CPA

THE Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia says this week’s controversy over the Senate Committee report into chemotherapy (PD Mon) has revealed the lack of transparency surrounding the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement. In a statement issued yesterday, the Society said that despite the Guild’s arguments that chemo funding is not part of the agreement, “the Senate Committee found that the paper trail and the Guild’s own announcements showed that agreements between the Commonwealth and the Guild were intended to result in a cut to chemotherapy funding, and that any monies required to support chemotherapy services should be found from within the 5CPA”. The SHPA said this shows that “again and again the notion of funding of pharmacy services through an agreement negotiated by a single pharmacy organisation is revealing its shortcomings. “In the past year in addition to the chemotherapy issue we have also seen a crisis in HMR funding, delays in implementing the hospital referral pathway for HMRs, and the restrictions on rural CE allowance to accredited Group 2 CPD,” the statement said. In particular, the SHPA said that decisions that affect the interests of Australian consumers, the Australian healthcare system and the pharmacy profession as a whole “are made by a single pharmacy organisation with limited membership criteria.” The Society said it believes that a single pharmacy organisation cannot adequately represent the entire profession and the interests of consumers across all sectors where medicines are supplied. MEANWHILE in relation to the chemotherapy issue, the SHPA says that current business rules discriminate between patients based on the ownership of the pharmacy and the hospital where they are treated. SHPA has proposed an alternative “revised and transparent model” that clearly identifies the four component costs of chemotherapy: the cost of the medicine, the cost of consumables, the preparation and reconstitution fee, and pharmacy professional services fees. The proposal also includes a revision of the business rules for PBS claiming, including offering the Chemotherapy Pharmaceuticals Access Program (CPAP) to both public and private hospital pharmacy providers. SHPA says it will seek to work with DoHA on the $1.2m chemotherapy review (PD yesterday) to ensure the services can be “reasonably and adequately funded.”

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