The AMA (WA) has withdrawn from the Enhanced Access Community Pharmacy Pilot (EACPP) Advisory Board.
Under the EACPP, pharmacists who have completed an approved graduate certificate course will be able to assess, manage and treat a range of conditions in a community pharmacy setting, including asthma, smoking cessation, shingles, impetigo, mild psoriasis, and mild to moderate acne. The pilot builds on existing pharmacy services: immunisation, treatment of urinary tract infection (UTIs), and resupply of oral contraceptive pills (OCPs).
AMA (WA) President Dr Kyle Hoath wrote to Minister for Health and Mental Health, Hon Meredith Hammat, to inform her of the decision.
The AMA (WA) has consistently stressed to all levels of Government that the EACPP raises significant patient safety and clinical governance concerns, including an increased risk of missed or incorrect diagnoses, fragmented continuity of care, and avoidable harm in the absence of enforceable safeguards.
Cognisant of the Government’s determination to proceed with implementing the EACPP as an election commitment, despite being forewarned of the risks, the AMA (WA) remained engaged in consultation and advisory processes in good faith, notwithstanding our misgivings regarding the model. This was in the hope that our feedback, if taken on, would minimise and mitigate risks to patients and the community.
However, the EACPP continues to progress in a way that does not adequately resolve the fundamental patient safety, continuity of care, and governance risks the AMA (WA) repeatedly put on the record. In these circumstances, the AMA (WA) decided it could not continue to participate in a process that risks being perceived as endorsement of a flawed and unsafe model.
Our other concerns around the EACPP relate to the scope-responsibility mismatch, conflict of interest issues associated with diminished separation of prescribing and dispensing, and broader concerns about the adequacy and credibility of consultation and clinical standards.
“AMA (WA) members have repeatedly recorded concerns about pharmacy prescribing reforms, including concerns about consultation processes and clinical standards,” Dr Hoath wrote, concluding that ‘we remain prepared to re-engage should there be a genuine undertaking to address the patient safety, continuity of care and clinical governance concerns that have consistently been raised in relation to the EACPP’.”
