Expanding pharmacists' scope of practice in Australian general practices

The Australian healthcare system is significantly strained due to growing health workforce shortage and healthcare costs. These challenges are pronounced in rural, remote, and regional areas, where limited access to care delays care and increases financial burdens for patients. The integration of general practice pharmacists (GPPs) into general practices across Australia contributes to improved medication management, patient safety and chronic disease outcomes. Integrating pharmacists into general practice saves of $544.87m in four years for the Australian health system. Despite this, a sustainable or economically viable funding model does not exist to support GPP’s role and their scope of practice remains limited unlike Australian community pharmacists and GPPs in the United Kingdom, who have prescribing rights. This creates a gap in efficiency, care continuity, and clinical equity within our healthcare system. GPPs must rely on the general practitioner (GP) to reissue or adjust prescriptions, despite clinical agreement on the changes making process inefficient and delaying patient care.Expanding GPPs scope of practice would reduce GP burden and improve timely access to care particularly within areas with limited medical workforce. A viable funding model is therefore essential to support GPPs. With sustainable financing, expanding their scope can drive significant economic and health system efficiencies by enabling prescriptions for repeat medications, managing minor ailments, and adjusting doses or formulations within a collaborative care framework. Studies demonstrate GPs support expanding GPPs' roles and indicate high patient satisfaction with prescribing GPP-led care. Given that community pharmacists are already practicing at top of their scope of practice, it is clinically logical and equitable to extend similar or greater prescribing capabilities to GPPs working within multidisciplinary teams under strong clinical governance and shared decision-making structures. Structured funding, prescribing training, regulatory reform, and interprofessional collaboration are crucial to drive this transformation.

N/A

PSA25: Conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

1