Community Pharmacy

Mr FULBROOK (Playford) (14:46): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister update the house on any developments in South Australia for community pharmacy?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:46): I thank the member for Playford for his question and his interest in health and pharmacy in South Australia. I note that nearby his electorate, in fact in my colleague the member for Ramsay's electorate, is the location of one of our three 24-hour pharmacies that we have across the metropolitan area that have seen many thousands of South Australians be able to get access to around the clock health care that they might otherwise have had to either wait an extended time for or go to one of our hospital emergency departments for. That is just one of the many reforms we are undertaking in terms of expanding the role that community pharmacy can play in terms of helping South Australians.

Yesterday was World Pharmacists Day, a day when we celebrate the incredible work that our pharmacists do in helping provide health care and managed medications across our state. It was also a day when we made a very significant announcement that we will be undertaking reforms in South Australia to expand the scope of what pharmacists can do.

This follows work that we have already undertaken to expand the scope of what pharmacists can do to cover prescribing for urinary tract infections (UTIs) and also the reapplication for scripts for the oral contraceptive pill. That follows work this house and a committee that members from both sides sat on and heard evidence did. The committee, chaired by the member for Badcoe, recommended that we take that action.

The evidence we have seen from the first six months of the rollout of that trial has meant that some 4,000 women have been helped by being able to get access to UTI medication through their community pharmacy. The benefit from that is not having women wait extensive periods, in many cases, to get access to a GP appointment and also that we have actually seen a 21 per cent reduction in emergency presentations at our EDs for women in that cohort with UTIs, so that is making a real-world difference for women now.

But we believe we can go further and safely work with pharmacists who will do additional training. They will do an additional year of a graduate diploma studying particular high-volume, low-acuity cases in areas such as skin conditions, shingles, dermatitis, school sores, ear infections, wound management, nausea and vomiting, reflux and musculoskeletal pain—just some of the conditions where we will expand the scope of what pharmacists can do.

This follows many of those conditions being in place in the UK, in Canada and in New Zealand, and also work that has happened in Queensland as well. This is going to provide more options for people, particularly as we face such a huge issue in terms of the availability of primary care right across the country over the past 10 years as we have seen declining bulk billing rates and declining availability of general practitioners.

Pharmacists are keen to do more. We have just hosted a function in the parliament—and I thank members who were able to be present for that—to pay respect to our pharmacists and to thank them. I met some of the younger pharmacists in the room, and they are itching to undertake this additional study and to be able to help more South Australians with their health conditions in a timely way. Just as we are also doing work to expand the role that they can do in terms of vaccinations, medication reviews and mental health first aid, there are a lot more ways in which we can utilise the role of community pharmacy to help South Australians, to avoid pressure on our GPs and ultimately on our emergency departments as well, and to give people more timely access to care when and where they need it.