Pharmacy Ready To Help Build Up Prevention Efforts

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 21 Apr 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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If the Federal Government implements policies reflecting the 2020 Summit's strong support for more action in the area of preventive health, Australia's pharmacy profession is ideally placed to play a key role, according to Pharmaceutical Society of Australia President Brian Grogan.

The 2020 Summit's Health Stream released five "ambitions". Two of these were to:

- have a health system structured around the person rather than the provider - in which every Australian has access to their own health data, and there are better and transparent data flows across all health players.

- have health policy focused on prevention - across not just health, but across Government and the whole community, with "zero tolerance" of unhealthy actions.

"Australia's pharmacy profession already plays a role in a range of key preventive health areas including smoking cessation and weight management," PSA President Brian Grogan said today.

"I note that participants in the 2020 Summit's Health Stream stressed 'the importance of healthy lifestyles, health promotion and disease prevention' as among their 'Priority Themes' and Australia's pharmacies are already active in all three areas.

"The latest Australian Health Ministers' Conference named obesity as a National Health Priority Area and PSA looks forward to this country's pharmacy profession further building on its existing involvement in this area.

"As the most accessible health providers in the community, I fully expect Australia's pharmacy profession will be a key player in implementing any new policies flowing from the 2020 Summit.

"The stress on better access for individuals to their health data, and better and more transparent data flows between health-care players is something Australia's pharmacy profession has been pushing for some time. Better access to health data - for example the reason medicines are being prescribed - would allow pharmacists to step up their involvement as part of the health care team and better serve the community.

"The only area of potential area of concern I have with the 2020 Summit's initial report is the wording 'zero tolerance' concerning unhealthy actions.

"I believe education is generally is a better approach than compulsion and the words 'zero tolerance' invite questions about potential policing roles and the role of the state in regulating peoples' behaviour.

"We await the release of further detail on all of the 2020 Summit's health ideas when the Final Report is published next month."

The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia is the organisation that represents the professional interests of Australia's 16,500 pharmacists. It provides standards of practice, education, training and practice support for pharmacists and helps members of the profession to deliver the best health care to their patients.

Pharmaceutical Society of Australia