House debates
Tuesday, 13 June 2023
Questions without Notice
Pharmacies
2:34 pm
Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source
I thank the member for Mayo for her question, and for her engagement in a number of discussions about the impact of this policy on community pharmacies in her electorate in the Adelaide Hills and a bit beyond that, and also on her constituents.
We went to the last election promising cheaper medicines, and we're very proud of the record of delivery we already have on making that happen in 12 short months. But we recognise there is more to do, which is why, unashamedly, we accepted the advice of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee in the budget to move to a 60-day dispensing limit for certain common medicines that are used for chronic disease. This is a common practice around the world and recognises the changing nature of patient profiles. Thirty-day dispensing makes eminent sense in a patient profile which sees people get single bouts of an infectious disease, a single dispensing of a prescription and then they're better. It doesn't make as much sense when people are on the same medicines for years or even decades.
Most obviously, this is going to be good for the hip pockets of patients—six million patients across the country. It's also going to be very good for their health, because we know from evidence overseas that in other countries which have adopted this, the most likely time people go off their medicines is at script renewal time. In those jurisdictions that have adopted 60- or even 90-day dispensing—
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