AMA’s pharmacy plan a ‘terrible idea’

PROPOSALS to deregulate the community pharmacy sector put forward by the Australian Medical Associa on (AMA) this week are not based on evidence, Pharmacy Guild of Australia Victorian Branch President, Anthony Tassone, believes.

Speaking on Radio Melbourne’s The Conversation Hour yesterday, Tassone described the AMA’s call for the removal of the exis ng pharmacy loca on and ownership rules as “a terrible idea”.

“It’s not based on any evidence,” he said.

“What the loca on rules actually do here in Australia is they help spread out Pharmaceu cal Benefits Scheme (PBS) approved pharmacies, so that there is greater accessibility for pa ents to PBS medicines.

“Over 87% of the Australian public live within 2.5km of an approved pharmacy to get PBS medicines.

“Sadly that’s just not the case in terms of accessibility to a GP.

“They tend to be clustered in metropolitan areas ‐ we have even seen this in Melbourne during the COVID‐19 pandemic, there’s been gaps in access in some of the western and northern suburbs to geng a vaccina on.

“So when you remove things like loca on rules it actually has really bad unintended consequences on pa ent access.

“I can tell you that I can’t think of a town in Australia that has a GP clinic but doesn’t have a pharmacy, but there’s plenty of examples of the opposite.”

Tassone also rejected the AMA’s asser on that deregula on of the sector would drag medicine prices down.

“I don’t understand the logic behind that, because the majority of prescrip ons dispensed in Australia, that’s over 300 million prescrip ons every year which are subsidised under the PBS, so there’s a set price based on a government subsidy,” he said.

“I have to pull the AMA president up here ‐ he’s got it wrong in terms of what Australians are paying in terms of out of pocket costs ‐ the figures quoted in their paper is a PBS subsidy, and that’s flatlined... due to reforms to the PBS.”