Pharmacy Daily | First Nations focus for CDU course

CHARLES Darwin University is planning to reintroduce pharmacist training to the Northern Territory next year with a new graduate entry extended Masters program (PD breaking news).

The university aims to submit the paperwork to the Australian Pharmacy Council in Apr, to secure accrediation for the course by Aug, which would allow for an inital intake of around 30 students to start in 2023.

The program is being developed in the context of the proposed changes in the Seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement that will see it recognised as a clinical doctorate in the future (PD 23 Jun 2020).

Organisers of the program have said it will have "a strong focus on First Nations health and inter professional collaboration that is particularly relevant to the NT health context, but will translate across many of the professional settings" of pharmacy.

The proposed Masters course has been announced less than three years after the university revealed it was cutting its Bachelor of Pharmacy program (PD 20 Aug 2019), and will mean there will only be a 12-month period where the institution will not be producing graduates for an intern year.

Pharmacy Guild of Australia NT Branch President, Peter Hatwell, welcomed the new course.

"I am very excited about the course, as I think home grown pharmacists with a strong emphasis on Indigenous health is greatly needed in this state," he said.

Pharmaceutical Society of Australia SA/NT Branch Vice President, Samuel Keitaanpaa, told Pharmacy Daily that the course was critical to plug existing gaps in the sector's workforce.

"We face a big workforce issue," he said.

"The hospitals did a big recruitment, whcih combined with pharmacists moving to other settings, left a lot of holes in community pharmacy.

"The NT pharmacy program was started to meet the issue of a workforce shortage and reliance on importing professionals from interstate and overseas - both of which we have seen the risks of reliance on during COVID-19, when these options disappeared."

Keitaanpaa added that there were "lots of opportunities to tailor [the new course] to the needs of the NT, such as working with Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) and GPs".