Welcome to this weeks’ edition of i2P (Information to Pharmacists) dated Monday 25 May, 2015.
This week we see and hear commentary and debate on the 6CPA with not all detail released and on the table for all to see.
In many ways, the 6CPA seems a clumsy attempt to appease all of the critics of Pharmacy, as well as address a range of items from the ANAO (Australian National Audit Office) all at once.
So we see yet another review of pharmacy to add to the pile already conducted and completed.
What could they possibly find?

One thing is very evident and that is Pharmacy will continue to be a whipping post for those extra savings that government only seems to find in soft targets like pharmacy.
Government certainly backed away from an enquiry into the mining industry because they would have had an almighty fight to squeeze more from the robust personalities guarding stakeholders in that industry.

This week really sees the PBS as a product now needing to be seen from a new perspective as a “loss leader” in pharmacy.
As a loss leader it has to serve the wider purpose of attracting patients that can acquire an added value by accepting pharmacy care systems – systems that can generate both a profit and a real value for patients.
In the article PBS Co-Pays…Come out Swinging!  methods are discussed as to how to market the proposed $1 co-pay discount by tying it to some other benefit reduction
e.g. only full co-pays get free home delivery or a sliding discount tied to the total number of prescriptions dispensed, or a 48 hour lead-time has to be built in per prescription (unless it is acute care) to gain a productivity benefit through shaving pharmacist time involvement.

The co-pay discount actually creates an opportunity to market a delivery service by creating a comparison between Coles, Woolworths and your delivery service charges, making sure that your charges are slightly under the Colesworth charges.
Only full co-pay prescriptions can receive free delivery status (or again, a sliding scale against the total value of the delivery order) so that your market attracts prescriptions; prescriptions equate to patients able to be registered as pharmacy patients and pharmacy patients form a base to market value to in the form of clinical services.

The Tipping Point for PBS Has Arrived is an article that explains the reasoning behind the attitudinal change that has to be embraced to change the pharmacy environment to that of a value-added service system for pharmacy patients.
We can compete to a limited extent against the PBS system and we can retail merchandise items that may, or may not, have a health application.
Both of these directions are limited by strong competition and would take time to build.
Nonetheless they should still be part of market thinking, provided there is long-term capital access.

How pharmaceutical marketing is harming us, and the seven reforms we need now is the title of an article written by Baz Bardoe that reinforces that, as pharmacists, we should not be blinded by the Pharma marketing processes that masquerade as “evidence”.
Many critics of pharmacy have the gall to demand that pharmacies not stock various products. We control and take full responsibility for our own domains and those critics need to just “butt out” because we have ample expertise to work out our own way through the maze, that some eminent commentators describe as being criminal.

HPV vaccine survivors in the Czech Republic is an article prepared by the Sanevax organisation and republished through i2P with permission.
It follows on from the article of Baz Bardoe and provides significant and identifiable instances of unsafe outcomes from HPV administration.

Chris Foster has some timely taxation advice which he delivers in an article titled:
2015-16 Budget Summary – How it May Affect You!   

Not that there is a lot on offer, but there may be some small advantage that can assist.

Our staff writers have found a new device that may revolutionise some forms of drug administration. In an article titled:
Implantable Device Delivers Medicine One Molecule at a Time
Read how minute doses can target specific tissues within the body providing treatments that are safer and more efficacious.

The NSW Pharmacy Council has published their newsletter and we reproduce it within i2P for convenience and future retrieval.
Go to NSW Pharmacy Council Newsletter for access.

And we finish up with PSA media releases and from NPS .

Enjoy your read until the next edition in a weeks’ time.

Neil Johnston
Editor,
25 May, 2015