RURAL pharmacists are calling on the profession's leaders to include better financial supports and measures to boost the workforce at the top of their Federal election wishlists.
In a statement released by the Rural Pharmacy Network of Australia (RPNA) this morning, the group urged the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia to push for reform of the rural classification system, used to determine the support rural and remote pharmacies receive through the Rural Pharmacy Maintenance Allowance.
The group noted that the shift from the PhARIA to the Modified Monash Model for rural classification had stripped funding away from hundreds of stores in rural areas, threatening the viability of the community pharmacy network in remote and isolated parts of the country.
"The upcoming election brings an opportunity to rectify this issue and to better ensure the funding distribution genuinely reflects the purpose of the program to support patient access to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medicines and pharmacy services," the spokesperson said.
"RPNA has modelled various alternative scenarios that would see funding better targeted to the most vulnerable and isolated communities.
"We have modelled two scenarios that work within the existing funding envelope and shift funding away from larger and more accessible pharmacies into the lower volume and more remote pharmacies.
"A third scenario shows what is possible using the existing method of calculation but with a funding injection of approximately $3.5 million."
The RPNA added that ideas such as HECS debt relief - recently floated by the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia in its pre-Budget submission (PD 01 Feb) - and bonded loans, to entice pharmacists to rural areas have been "thrown around for decades", without any action to address the workforce shortages being faced by those in rural pharmacy.
"If we are really serious about addressing the pharmacy workforce deficit in rural areas, we need as a priority, a system of government-funded salary incentives such as those enjoyed by the medical and allied health workforces (but not pharmacy) tiered according to rurality and number of years in rural practice," the RPNA spokesperson said.
"This should be a top election priority for any organisation representing rural pharmacies or pharmacists."
The RPNA has previously called for the introduction of a workforce incentive program to help rural pharmacists to attract workers (PD 19 Jan 2021).
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