Australia’s elderly will be better supported to avoid medicine-related harm with a relaxing of caps restricting access to Home Medicine Reviews (HMRs) from 1 March 2020.
In changes announced on 28 February 2020, accredited pharmacists will now be able to provide up to 30 HMRs, an increase from the 20 HMRs per month, which had been in place since February 2014.
The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) welcomed the change, with PSA National President, Associate Professor Chris Freeman saying that the “PSA have been calling for better access to medicine reviews for some time”.
“Medicine-related problems lead to 250,000 hospital admission each year costing $1.4 billion annually.
“Medicine review services undertaken by accredited pharmacists, such as HMRs, are a key way in which problems with medicines are identified and resolved in partnership with consumers and their general practitioners.”
While relaxing the caps seems promising, Pharmacy Guild of Australia NSW Branch President, David Heffernan says “increasing the per month cap on HMRs from 20 to 30 per provider will be of negligible benefit to residents of aged care facilities”.
“It does not address the issues and recommendations raised in the Royal Commission’s interim report released last October,” Mr Heffernan continues.
“The fact is that only 10% of HMR providers in Australia go anywhere near reaching the monthly cap of 20 services.
“That’s around 140 HMR providers across Australia.”
Mr Heffernan suggests that instead of investing “the $25.5 million earmarked for this component of its response to the Royal Commission” alternatives the Government could employ if it “wanted to respond more appropriately to the recommendations”, include:
- Amending the RMRR patient eligibility criteria to incorporate people in residential respite care and transitional care.
- Focusing compliance and audit activity on RMMR services and QUM program provision.
- Funding participation by pharmacists in case conferencing arrangements.
“If the Government still wants to increase the provision of medication management services outside of aged care facilities, a better path would be to increase the cap on in-pharmacy MedsChecks,” Mr Heffernan adds.
