Australia's community pharmacy location rules result in strong benefits for the community including high levels of access to health services, trust in pharmacy and incentives to provide excellent customer service.
Those were key conclusions drawn by eminent economist Professor Henry Ergas AO during a keynote presentation opening the Pharmacy Guild's Pharmacy Connect conference in Sydney this morning.
Ergas delivered an analysis of location rules and pharmacy ownership in the annual Judy Liauw Address at the conference.
"The critical starting point is that community pharmacy is not merely another retail service; rather, it is a crucial part of the health system, providing services to consumers on behalf of the Commonwealth.
"The Commonwealth's objectives with respect to location obviously differ from those which would characterise a purely commercial operation whose primary goal is profit maximisation," he said.
On ownership regulations, Prof Ergas said the requirement that only a pharmacist can own a pharmacy contributes to the trust consumers have in community pharmacy, which in turn helps achieves the govt's health goals.
"A key feature of the ownership rules is they ensure a dispersed ownership structure, with very low levels of ownership concentration."
He said this provides benefits by preventing a situation where the govt would have to purchase dispensing services from suppliers with substantial market power.
Ergas said owner pharmacists have considerable 'skin in the game' which in turn gives them strong incentives to maximise the goodwill in their asset by providing excellent customer service as well as conduct themselves and their pharmacies ethically and professionally.
He urged caution in altering the current framework which is "well grounded in economic analysis and compellingly supported by evidence".
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