Guild lays out codeine position

EXECUTIVE director of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, David Quilty, has penned an open letter to clarify the Guild’s position relating to the up-scheduling of pain relief medicines containing codeine from 01 Feb 2018.

The 14-point document highlights that the Guild has been “at the forefront of advocating for and taking action to introduce tools that enable clinicians to identify and support patients at risk of dependence”.

Advocating a national real time recording and monitoring system, namely MedsASSIST, that identifies and supports patients who may be misusing codeine containing overthe-counter analgesics, is a central theme of Quilty’s summary.

MedsASSIST has had a 70% uptake by community pharmacists and has recorded more than seven million purchases, with the software identifying reductions in codeine supply of up to 40% in some pharmacies.

With GPs unable to access any such real time recording and monitoring system, doctor shopping becomes a real risk, Quilty said.

Schedule 8 (Controlled Drugs), are the cause of the majority of overdose fatalities in Australia, not OTC codeine products and the Guild has led the push for a national real time monitoring system for S8 products as well, he added.

The Guild is not seeking to to reverse the up-scheduling decision but considers it is a blunt instrument that not only will not fully address the issues around addiction, but may actually exacerbate them.

“At the same time, 80 per cent of the more than one million patients who use these medicines annually do so on an occasional basis for the temporary treatment of acute pain and may be inconvenienced and face increased out-of-pocket costs.”

The Guild and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia are working together on this “commonsense approach” while working also with community pharmacy owners and other stakeholders - read the full document at guild.org.au.