The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has warned that extending the UTI pharmacy prescribing pilot sets a terrible precedent for patient safety and wellbeing.
It follows the Queensland Government permanently extending the controversial pilot, which allows pharmacists to prescribe antibiotics for urinary tract infections or UTIs. To help justify the decision the Government has recently pointed to a 118-page evaluation report, which was reported on by The Australian earlier this year. The RACGP has repeatedly raised strong concerns about this pilot.
RACGP Vice President Dr Bruce Willett said that the permanent extension of the pilot would endanger patients for years to come.
“This is not just a step in the wrong direction, it’s locking in permanently a pilot that should be immediately scrapped and subject to a comprehensive independent inquiry so that we can get to the bottom of what harm it has already caused to women in Queensland,” he said.
“As I have said many times before – we should not have non-medical health professionals in a cramped retail setting providing services they are not trained to provide to unsuspecting patients. This is a recipe for disaster and the college will continue to speak out about the dangers it poses.”
The RACGP Vice President said that the pilot was doomed from the outset.
“The warning signs have been there all along about how dangerous this pilot is,” he said.
“We have previously warned about several alarming incidents to emerge so far and these are realistically only the tip of the iceberg. One of the main problems with this pilot is that the opaque process for reporting. Put yourself in the shoes of the patient. If the only person that they can report adverse outcomes to is the pharmacist responsible for seeing them in the first place you can see why many people will be reluctant to step forward and report problems.
“We still haven’t had a proper and thorough assessment of this pilot, which is putting patient wellbeing at risk every day. Enough is enough, this permanent extension shows that the Government isn’t listening to the expert health bodies, including the RACGP. The pilot should be immediately binned, and an independent assessment conducted without delay.”
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