Pharmacy Daily | Trained and able but underutilised

HEALTH authorities need to use the skills they insist pharmacists should have, to help boost vaccine rates, Pharmacy Guild of Australia Victorian Branch President, Anthony Tassone, believes.

Speaking to Pharmacy Daily after reports of a hepatitis A outbreak in regional Victoria emerged, Tassone said the State Government needed to engage community pharmacy to support efforts to increase uptake of the hep A vaccine.

"The training program for pharmacist immunisers in Victoria that has been approved by our Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) covers a much wider range of preventable diseases than those we are currently allowed to vaccinate against [including hep A]," he said.

"Unless the Victorian Government is prepared to fully align what pharmacists are trained to do against what we're allowed to do -- then one can only assume Victorian pharmacist immunisers are currently overtrained.

"It doesn't really make much sense to stop pharmacists from administering vaccines they have been trained to provide."

Tassone said the rollout, and uptake of, pharmacist administered vaccines had been proven to be safe, effective and accepted by the public.

"Let's move to the next step and allow pharmacists to provide the vaccines they have been trained to administer," he said.

Tassone also called on State and Federal Governments to implement a funding model to ensure patients who chose to be vaccinated at a community pharmacy do not face out-of-pocket costs that would be covered by Medicare if they had gone to a GP.

"Why should a member of the public endure out of pocket costs to receive a vaccination under the National Immunisation Program, but not from a GP or nurse?" he said.

"This goes against a fundamental principle of national medicines policy around equity of access for all Australians.

"With a number of GP's currently not practising at medical centres but rather telehealth -- community pharmacies will continue to be a critical access point for vaccinations by the public.

"Let's respond to the next outbreak of an infectious virus infection -- whatever it may be, with a fully utilised workforce actually allowed to do what they're trained to do."