FOR too long, pharmacy education has lagged behind the reality of contemporary practice.
Community pharmacies are delivering vaccinations, providing contraception and treating UTIs.
We're supporting aged care residents, conducting medication reviews, and handling increasingly complex primary care presentations.
Yet the pathways supposed to prepare graduates for this work remain fragmented, inconsistent and, in some areas, outdated.
If we want pharmacists practising at full scope, safely and confidently, we need accreditation standards that guarantee graduates are job ready from day one - that is the benchmark the public deserves.
Pharmacy degrees must reflect how pharmacists practise.
That means earlier and more frequent hands-on learning, with students fully trained to prescribe, dispense, administer and review medicines, and provide the services patients already rely on.
Accreditation standards must require core capability in digital health, clinical documentation, secure messaging, decision support tools and the emerging influence of AI in practice.
These are no longer optional skill sets - they are fundamental to safe, modern care.
We need to see a Masters Extended model, with intern training embedded in the degree.
By 2028, all pharmacist competencies should be built into university programs so graduates can enter the workforce ready to practise, without duplication or delay.
A single, integrated training pathway will ensure national consistency.
Employers will know what skills a graduate brings, students will know what is required, and the profession will finally have a coherent, end-to-end, education framework.
Diversity matters too, and a strong profession must reflect the communities it serves, including students from rural and regional areas, culturally diverse backgrounds, and those historically underrepresented in health education.
And for First Nations students, culturally safe learning environments must be an explicit accreditation requirement, not an aspiration.
If this review delivers what the profession and patients need, we will see graduates who are not only clinically competent but practice ready, confident and capable of delivering at the top of their scope from day one.
That is the future the Guild is advocating for - and the future patients deserve.
Now is the time to set a standard that drives capability, not constrains it.
Professor Trent Twomey is the national president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 04 Mar 26
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