Scheduling to stay the same
December 23, 2010
THE Pharmacy Guild of Australia
has welcomed the decision by the
Department of Health and Ageing’s
National Coordinating Committee
on Therapeutic Goods (NCCTG), to
retain the current medication
scheduling system, saying it is an
“early Christmas present for
community pharmacy”.
As a result of the decision, both
the Pharmacy Medicines (S2) and
the Pharmacist Only Medicines (S3)
schedules will remain in force and
in their present incarnation.
According to Guild National
President, Kos Sclavos, maintaining
the schedule status quo “will
provide increased certainty and
stability for the profession”.
In making its decision, the
NCCTG took into account the
many changes to the community
pharmacy landscape (including the
creation of the Pharmacy Board of
Australia) which had occurred since
the publication of the Galbally
Review of Drugs, Poisons and
Controlled Substances Legislation
in 2001.
Based on these changes, the
NCCTG found that at this time it
was appropriate to maintain S2
and S3.
MEANWHILE responding to the
Guild’s submission on the need to
retain the current mystery shopper
program, which supports both the
OTC schedules, the NCCTG
concluded that the scheme’s data
was ‘valuable’ and that the
program should be maintained.
The NCCTG did however
recommend that additional training
with regard to S2 medicines for
pharmacy assistants be put in place
by 2014.
This recommendation was based
on an examination of the pharmacy
performance data generated
through the mystery shopping
scheme between 2002 and 2010.
“It is important, for pharmacists
and pharmacy staff to remain
vigilant with regard to our OTC
schedules and committed to the
necessary training to ensure
pharmacies are providing these
medicines to the community in an
appropriate way,” said Sclavos.
“If regulators cannot see the
benefits for the community in our
current scheduling arrangements,
they could be threatened again at
some point in the future,” he added.
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