Real-Time Prescription Monitoring

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:12): My question is directed to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister please update the council on how the Marshall government is helping to protect South Australians against the misuse of prescription drugs?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:12): I thank the honourable member for her question. The Marshall Liberal government was elected with a commitment to reduce the misuse of prescription drugs through the introduction of real-time prescription monitoring. The government has delivered on that commitment with a $7.5 million investment to implement a real-time prescription monitoring system for schedule 8 medicines in South Australia. This system will help reduce the risk of addiction, overdoses and death associated with the use of these controlled medicines.

In another milestone, Fred IT has been awarded the contract to implement South Australia's IT system to deliver real-time monitoring. Fred IT is the largest dedicated IT provider to the pharmacy industry in Australia. It has also been appointed by the commonwealth government to design, build and deliver the National Data Exchange component of the National Real Time Prescription Monitoring system. Using the IT solution that will be developed, South Australia's real-time reporting will assist doctors and pharmacists to identify patients who are at risk of harm from dependency, misuse or abuse of high-risk medicines and patients who are diverting these medicines. The system will provide an instant alert to doctors and pharmacists, through their clinician software, if patients have previously been supplied with a high-risk medicine.

Australian jurisdictions that implement a real-time prescription monitoring system will be able to link to the commonwealth-managed National Data Exchange to address prescription forgery, misuse and doctor shopping of controlled drugs across Australia. The National Data Exchange will capture information from state and territory regulatory systems prescribing and dispensing software and a range of external data sources to provide real-time detection and alerting for regulators, pharmacists, doctors and other health professionals. The Marshall Liberal government is delivering on this commitment to protect South Australians from the misuse of prescription drugs, and I look forward to the further implementation of the system.