Editorial

From the desk of the editor

Welcome to the May 2012 homepage edition of i2P-Information to Pharmacists. Rollo Manning has been having some time out having staples removed from the site of his open heart surgery.He is now at home recuperating in Darwin, having arrived home last Friday, beating a cold and hasty retreat from Canberra.We all wish him a speedy recovery and hopefully, he will be fit enough to contribute by next month.
This month, Pharmedia discusses the toll that is taken when someone complains about you to an authority without good cause. Well, the good news is that you can now take action to protect yourself if such a complaint is made, and that may even include action for defamation. Read about a recent case involving two doctors, with Mark Coleman drawing on personal experience to illustrate.

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National leadership needed for decisive health reform

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Editing and Researching news and stories about global and local Pharmacy Issues

The Australian Nursing Federation, with 170,000 members, is the professional and industrial voice for nurses and midwives in Australia.
Unlike pharmacy, nurses speak with a single voice and appear to numerically dominate the landscape in numbers, over all other health professionals.
So for some time they have been in expansionist mode in terms of breaking out of their traditional "turf" and taking on more consultative and prescribing duties.
Pressures created by a crumbling public hospital system will force nurses to seek new jobs elsewhere.
There is a positive here if pharmacists are able to accommodate nurses in a community pharmacy environment, as has happened in Western Australia with the Healthetc pharmacies.
While the business model has yet to be proven in Australia. there is little doubt that with refinement and government support, a new primary health care model could emerge.

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Allowing nurses to work to their full scope of practice will vastly improve access to preventative and primary health care services for all Australians, the ANF said today following the release of two major health reform reports.

Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) Federal Secretary Ged Kearney said reports from the primary health care strategy reference group and preventative health taskforce were encouraging for nurses, midwives and the general public because they advocated a shift to patient and consumer centred care.

“The primary health care strategy report highlights the inadequate and fragmented state of our health system. One of the biggest problems we have in this regard is the lack of a collaborative, team based approach to health care delivery that puts the patient first.

“We should respond to patients and local communities on a needs basis when delivering primary and preventative health care, nurses are already doing this in large numbers around the country,” Ms Kearney said. “We have a serious workforce shortage in the health care sector and we are not currently making the most of our valuable nurses and midwives.”

Enhanced roles for nurses and midwives in primary health care is gaining recognition on a national and international level and is considered integral to achieving improved population health outcomes and access to primary health care services.

“Consolidating the role of nurses and midwives allows the human service sector to work with communities on preventing illness and promoting good health. It also provides an opportunity to improve the management of chronic disease and reduce demand on the acute sector. We have a unique opportunity in Australia to make these changes but it will require strong national leadership.”

The ANF supports many of the key recommendations of both reports and looks forward to working on improving opportunities for nurses and midwives to work to their full scope of practice in delivering services to people in their communities, Ms Kearney said.

The ANF, with 170,000 members, is the professional and industrial voice for nurses and midwives in Australia.

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