GPs Must Remain At The Centre Of Patient Care, Royal Australian College Of General Practitioners
July 29th, 2008 | by admin |In a proposal to the Federal Government, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia is recommending that pharmacists should be allowed to write repeat scripts for chronic conditions for up to 12 months as well as writing repeat scripts for low dose statins, the contraceptive pill and certain antibiotics, saying this will free up doctors’ time.
“The RACGP (Royal Australian College of General Practitioners) does not support the Pharmacy Guild’s suggestion but does welcome discussion to improve the health care system,” said Dr Vasantha Preetham, RACGP President and GP from Perth.
“A general practitioner’s role is much more than the provider of a ’script’. A quality reproductive health service considers of a history, appropriate tests, discussion of alternatives and, at regular intervals, consider sexually transmitted infection screening and Pap tests. High quality cardiovascular care similarly involves consideration of the whole person and their environment and may result in a ’script’, but this is not the sole outcome: whole person care, the hallmark of general practice, is just that - caring and supporting the individual to make good decisions about their health care.
“In a period where patients have concerns about the time it sometimes takes to see a GP, patients will still not want to see the quality of care compromised. The RACGP strongly supports team-based care arrangements, better information management system options, better integration of services across sectors and ongoing competency training for primary health care.
“One could ask what benefit there is in arbitrarily restricting the length of time that a prescription lasts. Patients may be better served by ’scripts’ for longer periods, the benefit of which they monitor in partnership with their GPs. This would reduce demand on pharmacists; although it would also impact on the payment they receive each time they dispense a medicine.
“We need to build on our health care system to integrate care, not fragment it.
“Quality of care needs continuity - continuity of the information thread about a patient’s care, being on the ’same page’ about a patient’s care where more than one person is involved, and continuity of the relationships.
“A way of maintaining continuity is to allow longer periods for prescriptions.
“The college has noted that the Pharmacy Guild President also mentioned extending the system that monitors pseudoephedrine sales to other drugs of abuse. The RACGP supports this move as an excellent example of the Australian Government working with a professional group to build solutions that work for all Australians,” said Dr Preetham.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) is responsible for maintaining standards for quality clinical practice, education and training, and research in Australian general practice. The RACGP has the largest general practitioner membership of any medical organisation in Australia and represents the majority of Australia’s general practitioners.
http://www.racgp.org.au
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