Pharmacy Daily | Codeine rescheduling not the solution

LAST week’s interim decision on re-scheduling of codeine products is not the best way to go for Australian health care consumers. The interim decision of the Advisory Committee on Medicines Scheduling (ACMS) released on Friday would see all codeine products, including many well known cough and cold relief products, available on prescription only from June 2016. The Guild acknowledges that codeine dependence is a real and growing concern and that side effects from taking excessive amounts of codeine containing analgesics can be very serious. However, we believe the proposed re-scheduling is unlikely to address the issue of dependency and may instead create further problems, such as: • For the large majority of people who use these products safely and effectively, re-scheduling will make pain relief medicines more expensive and more difficult to obtain. • There will be an increase in the workload of doctors. • There will be increased Medicare and PBS costs (particularly if doctors elect to prescribe consumers higher strength codeine products or other opioids listed on the PBS). The alternative to re-scheduling should include: • A real-time recording and reporting system to identify consumers potentially at risk, to prevent medication misadventure. A prototype of such a system has already been developed, with cross industry and consumer support.

---

The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 06 Oct 15
To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 06 Oct 15