Pharma-Goss for February 2010

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Rollo Manning articles by this author...

Rollo Manning has experienced pharmacy practice from all sectors of the industry – retail, administrative, policy and remote Aboriginal practice. He spent 10 years with Glaxo Australia and was the first Director of Public Relations at the Pharmacy Guild National Secretariat in Canberra. He has also held the position of Pharmacy Policy Officer for Territory Health Services in Darwin. Rollo is currently a Consultant working in his own practice with remote Aboriginal communities, in Northern Australia.

Nurses in pharmacies – why need permission?

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Register a business with a business registry

The introduction of National Registration of health professionals presents an ideal opportunity to review the way other functions of a Pharmacy Board are carried out. The registration of pharmacy businesses and their premises assumes there is a register. This is surely the function of a Department of Business which has the facility to do this for not just a pharmacy but a host of other premises that require special conditions to operate in the interests of public safety.

Professional conduct and adhering to the code of practice is something which the professional body for pharmacists should be able to monitor – in this case the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.

The monolithic nature of the Pharmacy Boards is able to be reduced to a small unit that is servicing the National Pharmacy Board in terms of complaints from the public and there all jurisdictions have a body called a health complaints unit! .

So what are we left with?

A National Register;

A professional body with something to do in monitoring the standards of professional practice;

A complaints mechanism handled by an already established body;

A register of business premises held by a department of business; and,

A bunch of people who used to sit on Pharmacy Boards with no more free tickets to conferences at home and overseas.

As they say in common every day speak – too easy. But likely – hardly - there are too many vested interests with something to lose for common sense to prevail.

Another reason it will not happen is that the tight time schedule for the introduction of the National Board is such that there is no time to think though in a proper manner what happens to the rest. Bill C is likely to be rushed through State/Territory Parliaments to facilitate the 1 July start date in 2010.

Someone please tell me I am wrong and a revolution can still happen!

Rent too high – move out

Once again with the 5th Agreement negotiations under way we are starting to hear the bleating about high rent.

For goodness sake who said you had to be in a high rent place in the first instance? Certainly not the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The function of supplying the PBS scripts to the people in a locality could just as easily be done from premises away from the big retailers.

It is pharmacists themselves who have decided they want to be in high rent situations.

I want to see the day when a PBS Dispensary is operating from modest premises in a neighbourhood setting near to the doctors and providing a “crash hot” professional service without all the bells and whistles of a prime retailing “Priceline” type high volume merchandising outlet.

E-script advantages

Will someone please tell me the advantage to consumers of electronic prescriptions?

And don’t say it reduces dispensing errors because we have been told there aren’t any.

And don’t say it helps to be able to read doctor’s writing because over the last century we have prided ourselves as being the only ones who have been trained to do this.

And don’t tell me the consumer will have the script ready for them quicker because we spent a lot of time trying to convince the consumer that the wait was worth it for all the quality control measures we have to perform.

So what is left? You tell me.

It costs money.

It does not speed up the claim process.

It is not universal.

It does not make money for the pharmacist dispensing, and

It does not save money for the consumer.

Tis a puzzlement and could be in the category of “toys for the boys”.

Quote of the Month

"No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself."

William Penn (1644-1718, British religious leader, founder of Pennsylvania)

Send your subject suggestions to Pharma-Goss for comment.

Edited by Rollo Manning at rollom@iinet.net.au