Editorial
Welcome to the March edition of i2P – Information to Pharmacists.
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This was because the code in our earlier version appeared to be too unstable to maintain, hence the simpler presentation.
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Loretta Marron BSc: Health Watch
Barry Urquhart: Marketing Focus
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Volume 1 Number 4
Volume 1 Number 5
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Volume 1 Number 7
Volume 2 Number 1
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Pharma News
Staff Writer: SIGMA Pharmaceuticals suspends share trading before release of revised earnings outlookHospital News
Health Politics
Pat Gallagher: Health Informatics - The State of the Nation
Peter Sayers: The Three-Ring Circus
Dr David More: e-Health IdentifiersEPublications
Pharma-Goss - With Rollo Manning - July 2009
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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. | |
Comment to the Editor or email Rollo Manning on rollom@iinet.net.au
THE ANSWER TO EMPLOYEE PHARMACISTS PAY PROBLEMS
It is not possible in 2009 to continue a business structure that worked in 1960. Back then pharmacists were registered on the basis of their ability to dispense. No question about that. The knowledge of the product forms (mixtures, creams, emulsions and suppositories) was an imperative. The drug knowledge avoided incompatibilities in compounded medicines and the indexing system of the script book allowed medication reviews to be done routinely.
Fast forward to 2009 – anyone can read a typed script, select stock from the shelf, enter details into a PC and produce the repeat authorization and label.
And yet – the staff deployment and wage structure is still the same.
Today the pharmacy graduate has a vast knowledge of Pharma... – all sorts of things – cology, kinetics, cotherapies, codynamics and so on.
This is NOT the knowledge required for dispensing – it is knowledge to act as a true allied health professional in a primary health care (PHC) system that needs all the multi disciplinary input it can find in the best interest of the client (patient or consumer).
How can pharmacists ever expect to be recognised in the 2009 PHC setting while they are still working with a model of the 1960s?
All concerned with a future of prosperity for the profession must attend gatherings to talk again about where the profession is heading and advocate for a change in the paradigm of pharmacy practice.
Have the retail shops but do not expect them to be propped up by a National Health Scheme that must concentrate on the best interests of the consumer (and taxpayer).
Stop tying PBS Approval to a successful retail business model.
Start establishing professional agencies (Pharmcare agencies) that are the provider of pharmaceutical care to its clients at a cost to the taxpayer for a quality service.
There are too many messiahs out there calling on the wisdom of the past to determine the future.
In the words of Professor Dexter Dunphy – “you can only understand the future when you start living it”.
Pharmacy must start living a future – not just talking about it and living in the past.
BIG PROFITS BRING BIG CRITICS
The recent media sniping at the Pharmacy Guild strengthen the call for a review into the infrastructure for supplying PBS medicines to the Australian public is need of a review. It is the opinion of this writer that this must be done before any future agreements are entered in to between the Government and community pharmacy interests.
It is the late 1980s since there was a review of “pharmacy earnings costs and profits” with the base established then being updated by subsequent agreements ratified by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Remuneration Tribunal.
The fact that excessive charging for under co-payment PBS dispensing is happening as revealed in the Daily Telegraph is a sign of the times. However back in 1988 the co-payment was only $11 and hardly a factor in creating significant profits.
But in 2009 with a co-payment set at $31.90 there is a huge market of non-subsidised PBS medicines that are being paid for by consumers. It is not known how big this is despite there being a commitment in the 4th CPA for this information to be made available. A “research” project is underway to determine how this can be done. Really? This is a joke! The answer is on the PC of every dispensary computer - take a sample agreed with the stats experts and you have it.
The generic drug market has also expanded in the last 20 years and this too needs to be factored in.
When a supplier can buy in at $2 and sell for $15 it is a good profit. No wonder there is criticisms of these profits being made by an agency working for the Government in supplying an essential component of a National Health system.
Pharmacists expect more so long as this situation exists.
ALAN JONES AT IT AGAIN
Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones went back in time four years when he supported community pharmacy against the recent calls for change especially the Daily Telegraph mentioned above and then following the front page in the Financial Review pointing to the 5th Agreement and likely problems for the Guild.
As far as Alan in concerned this is all part of the big plot to allow Woolworths and Coles to have pharmaceutical products in their supermarkets.
The rhetoric is the same as in 2005 when the same broadcaster went on the offensive for pharmacists against the threat of NSW legislation (allegedly) opening the door for Wool
worths to have pharmacies.
So strong is the opinion of this voice in forming public opinion in Australia that one wonders how such a voice can be so far off the beam.
Sensitive area as is the pharmacies in supermarkets push by the Pharmacy Guild, that one could be excused of thinking that the Alan Jones button on the defence of pharmacies was pushed after the Guild alerted him to the need for another rant.
Money in the past has proved to be no barrier to telling a good story – as false as it may be. However back in 2005 when this writer suggested to Alan Jones that he may be getting paid by the Guild a quick response came back saying the suggestion was “idiotic”. The same will not be tried again in 2009 although the suspicions are still there.
BILL C OPENS PHARMACY OWNERSHIP DEBATE
The introduction of the new National Registration Authority for Health Professionals provides the opportunity for the question of who should own a pharmacy to be opened up as new legislation is needed in every State to ratify the status quo. However the introduction of a Bill to a Parliament always opens up the subject for debate and gives proponents for change the opportunity to put forward an alternative case.
The new Acts of State Parliaments to cover registration will only have the registration and assessment of professional standards. A separate Bill will have to be introduced to retain all those other factors that were in the previous Pharmacy Act and covered subject areas not included in the new laws. Expect some activity from the retail lobby that wants to see a loosening of the rules associated with the ownership of pharmacy.
One thing that one could be excused for putting money on is that Alan Jones will be in the mix somewhere.
The time has come for these business aspects of a retail small business to be included in legislation administered by a business or trade area of the legislature and NOT of a Health Department. That is if there needs to be legislation at all.
The old argument that pharmaceuticals are not ordinary items of commerce fails to draw interest while the discount stores flourish. Also the marketing aspects of pharmaceuticals are debated around the schedule of poisons register which is moving to a wider range of medicine products available in supermarkets.
It is possible to have a supermarket in a pharmacy but NOT a pharmacy in a supermarket. This has to stop and the market place used to decide who succeeds and who fails.
Send your subject suggestions to Pharma-Goss for comment.
Edited by Rollo Manning at rollom@iinet.net.au
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Submitted by Neil Johnston on Sat, 04/07/2009 - 09:17.
Conceptually, I have often been at loggerheads with Rollo, but on the issues discussed in Pharma-Goss this month, I am in full agreement.
Rollo has always taken the perspective from a consumer viewpoint while I have considered issues from the standpoint of a practitioner pharmacist.
The fact is that a professional service will not work unless it is acceptable and provides value for a consumer, otherwise there would be no interest in paying for it.
The trick is now for the decision makers in pharmacy to put aside their power plays and get down to the "nitty-gritty" of genuine consideration for the profession holistically.
This process has to embrace the restructure of a community pharmacy.
There is some evidence that this process has started (even Rollo and I are starting to agree!)
Submitted by Rollo Manning on Sun, 05/07/2009 - 12:32.
The imperative is to have a product that will sell. The position of a pharmacist behind a dispensary bench entering data into a PC and producing labels and repeats does not inspire anyone. Get out there and do what you are trained to do and progress might be made. Stay behind in the dispensary and get paid for what you are worth - very little in adding value to the prescribed medicine.
Submitted by Guest John Gibson on Fri, 03/07/2009 - 13:09.
I support Rollo Manning's call for a review into the infrastructure for supplying PBS medicines to the Australian public. I agree also that this must be done before any future agreements are entered into between the Government and community pharmacy interests.
Any review must take ino account the fact that there are thousands of well trained pharmacists working in the community whose skills are vastly underutilised and develop a structure that facilitates the use of these skilled in raising standards of care.
It is a national disgrace that the government has not tapped into this massive health care resource for the benefit of the public.
John Gibson
Submitted by Rollo Manning on Sun, 05/07/2009 - 12:38.
Thanks for the support John.
It needs more than you and me though. Lets hope other key stakeholders will band together and insist on a full review of the way medicines are supplied through the PBS to the public before any further agreements. I want to know where the legislative backing is for another agreement. Can anyone help on this? Is it written into the National Health Act that there must be a five yearly agreement or is it another ploy by the industry's lobby groups to maintain the good ole status quo?
Rollo
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