PPA slams Guild attitude

UNION group Professional Pharmacists Australia (PPA) says it’s “disappointed by the attitude and obstruction of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia,” as part of the PPA response to the Interim Report of the Review of Pharmacy Remuneration and Regulation.

In a submission to the Panel, PPA also questioned the clarity of the Interim Report, suggesting it should be restructured “to make it easier for stakeholders to understand concepts around medication risk,” as well as providing a simpler explanation of the uniform remuneration method proposed by the Panel.

“Only following the discussion with the Panel, after the report was released, we better understood how the standardised remuneration could drive quality,” PPA said.

PPA is proposing a new service model’ which acknowledges the unacceptable level of medication misadventure associated with legal use of medicines in the community, introducing the concept of “audited minimum service standards” as well as a single standard patient contribution fee for each molecule, and a single dispensing fee based on the cost of the service.

The wide-ranging response also urges that wholesaler CSO funding be removed from future Community Pharmacy Agreements, and that PPA be included in future negotiations as the representative of employee pharmacists.

The organisation said it believed the report must not be seen as a “tweak of the status quo and ust a way to help the Government negotiate prescription fees.

“We believe that there needs to be a stronger link between the quality use of medicines and the access to affordable medicine arms of the National Medicines Policy, to underpin the reasoning for reform to the way pharmacists supply prescription medicines,” PPA said.

View the full PPA submission at professionalpharmacists.com.au.