The AJP Podcast

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh speaks to Christine Kelly and Emil Demyane from the Community and Pharmacy Support Group (CAPS) about the organisation’s ongoing campaign against the federal government’s 60-day dispensing policy.

Among the issues covered are the lack of understanding of what medications are available under the policy (9 min: 35) and growing tensions between patients, GPs and pharmacists (11:15). 

(0:57) CAPS Canberra rally. 

(3:36) Unfavourable coverage of CAPS supporters at Parliament House “put the issue on the top of the news”.

(5:40) Transition to 60-day dispensing has been difficult for pharmacists.

(6:22) Government messaging is causing confusion and uncertainty for patients and health workers.

(12:15) Medication wastage is on the rise with patients who are not stable on their medication receiving 60-day scripts only to have treatment changed.

(19.12) CAPS’s Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement goals. 

(21.15) Profession is united and ready to “reactivate” to ensure the viability of community pharmacy

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Yvette Anderson, clinical accredited pharmacist in Bendigo, talks to the AJP Podcast’s Carlene McMaugh about her lived and professional experience with neurodivergence, non-traditional pharmacist roles and imposter syndrome.

The hospital pharmacist , who has also worked in the community, aged care and consultancy sectors, is the creator of The Spectrum Pharmacist and was the winner of the PSA’s 2022 Shark Tank contest for her work on her “passion project,” The Spectrum Pharmacist’s Neurodiverse Squad, as well as Victorian Pharmacist of the Year that year.

“I have three sons, my eldest and youngest are both on the spectrum,” she tells McMaugh, explaining how she has found there was a lot of information – not always factual – out there for patients and their loved ones about neurodivergence.

“I was getting more and more questions about medications and what other evidence-based practices to use,” she said, perhaps because she and her family were open about her children’s diagnoses.

And she has some advice for pharmacists who are keen to find their own niche and branch out beyond traditional roles.

“I don’t think at the moment in a traditional sense pharmacists are utilising all the skills that we have, whether you’re in community or aged care or hospital, we’ve got so much more to give as part of that really important member of that health care team,” she says, saying this became obvious when talking to neurodiverse squad members who had asked where pharmacists sat in multidisciplinary teams.

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

In this edition of the AJP podcast, our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to Angus Thompson, a Tasmanian accredited pharmacist and academic.

Key topics are the debate over the funding of Home Medicine Reviews (HMRs) and how this will fit into the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement.   

Topics covered include:

Angus Thompson is a consulting clinical pharmacist, a lecturer in Therapeutics and Pharmacy Practice at the University of Tasmania and a pharmacist clinical editor for Primary Health Tasmania

You can access the full transcript of this podcast here. While we endeavour to ensure all important words and phrases are correct, please note there may be some minor inaccuracies in the transcription.

ACCESS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Sarah Lord and Sione Crawford of Harm Reduction Victoria discuss the change to ODT funding, which Lord describes as “really monumental”.

But “one of the issues was that no one really knew that this was happening,” she says. “I personally felt we had not all that much notice, and I think pharmacists in particular have reported to me that there was very little if any consultation, they didn’t feel that they were consulted around these reforms, what they were going to look like, how they were going to work.”

Some pharmacies had not realised that they were not able to increase the price of doses beyond $7.30 for 28 days’ dosing for people with health care cards, while prescribers had to get used to a new way to get scripts, she tells McMaugh – while people not eligible for Medicare cards are still facing “phenomenal” increases in fees.

However only around 12 pharmacies around the state said they would close their program, and only about seven did so, saying generally pharmacy has responded well.

She does warn that the changes could be “going to hit pharmacies quite hard on their bottom line” as they came in alongside 60-day dispensing.

Crawford said he had received feedback from his pharmacy that was really positive, despite “disbelief” at the implementation and planning process.

And he also has suggestions for pharmacists to help make the process more manageable.

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

In the latest AJP podcast, PSA national president, Dr Fei Sim, talks to Carlene McMaugh about how she perceives the immediate future direction for community pharmacy. 

With the community pharmacy sector having spent four months in the “60 day dispensing policy vortex”, Dr Sim talks about why we now should “take a step back” to consider the ramifications of the policy, and what it means for the future direction of pharmacy.

She says there is already an “inevitable” shift in the focus of community pharmacy from dispensing toward cognitive professional services, and this needs to be supported by “meaningful reimbursement” to ensure its viability.

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh speaks to the NSW government’s clinical pharmacy trials chief investigator, Dr Sarah Dineen-Griffin about what expanding pharmacists’ scope of practice will entail. 

Among the topics covered are: (2 min:30) common changes pharmacists across the country can expect to see in scope of practice trials. 

(1:15) International trends around new roles for pharmacists.

(12:45) The need to address the fragmentation of healthcare through improved communication between pharmacists and other healthcare practitioners. 

(17:20) Funding for pharmacist prescribing through state and territory pilots, and the importance of boosting remuneration through the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement.

(19:15) As a clinical trial the expansion of pharmacists’ scope of practice in NSW will generate an evidence base to support the profession in taking on new roles. 

(28.10) Maximising pharmacists’ impact on minor ailments.

In this podcast, our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to award-winning consultant pharmacist Deborah Hawthorne, about the beginning of the embedded aged care pharmacy role.

Saying she’s “excited about the role”, Hawthorne says there will be “lots of confusion and lots of need for support” during the transition period while the role is in its infancy. 

She does welcome the enthusiasm she sees in the profession to undertake aged care pharmacy roles, but says there will be a need for lots of support and education for what she sees as a “wave of fresh faces” joining the accredited pharmacy community.

Among the topics covered are: 

Go here to listen to Deborah’s thoughts on expanding and strengthening the GP pharmacist role. We also recently profiled Deborah, and this will appear in the October print edition of AJP, and subsequently in our digital offerings.  

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Sydney community pharmacists Christine Kelly and Emil Demyane speak with AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about how the Community and Pharmacists Support Group plans to fight the controversial policy – and why.

“We’re just a bunch of independent pharmacists” who are “really passionate about the future for all of our young pharmacists as well,” says Kelly.

“Our goal is to apply pressure onto the government to actually listen to our profession, to take a pause on the 60-day policy…and to consult with us as well,” says Kelly.

“There’s a lot riding on this and the way it’s rolled out,” says Demyane, saying that it needs to be rolled out so that “no Australian is worse off,” including pharmacists.

He said that third-year pharmacy students are already asking, “Are we going to have an internship? How am I going to get an internship if there are no spots in a community pharmacy?”

And what will happen if the policy begins as expected in just a day or two?

“We’re going to protest in every single state,” says Kelly. “Until they listen to us!”

Pharmacists put in an enormous amount of effort to help the community during the Covid pandemic, she says.

“We’re not going to stop the fight.

“Because it’s not fair. And we are the voters. Our customers are voters as well. And they owe it to us to listen to us. And that involves consulting as well.”

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh talks with rural Victorian pharmacist and wearer of “many hats” Debbie Hawthorne, who works in a GP clinic as well as in research, with her local PHN, in telehealth, clinical consulting and several other roles.

Hawthorne was also named PSA Consultant Pharmacist of the Year in May, and has gained reknown for her tireless work reaching out to the profession via social media.

In this episode, she talks to AJP podcast host Carlene McMaugh about her work as a GP pharmacist – beginning just before the pandemic struck – and the learning curve she climbed, beginning with her work in opioid stewardship.

“We have a lot of things against us, as pharmacists in GP clinics,” Hawthorne says, explaining why she has focused on making her job sustainable and generating income.

“We can’t claim on the MBS; I can help collect data and help others claim on the MBS.”

Pharmacists are the best people to recognise who needs a home medication review, Hawthorne says, saying that she has the privilege of seeing a “wonderful cycle of care,” identifying patients who could use a review, talking to GPs about it, doing a review in their home, and then performing follow-up.

It’s a great way to develop relationships, she says – something she loved in community pharmacy, and now enjoys as a GP pharmacist, as well as how this meant she was able to help one patient whose pain wasn’t being controlled.

She also talks about the steps pharmacists can take if they’re keen to investigate a role in GP pharmacy – a question she says she’s asked on a weekly basis.

“The more GP pharmacists there are, the stronger the role will be and the more accepted it will be as part of normal practice.”

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Victorian branch manager for the Pharmaceutical Society, and its subject expert on harm reduction and opioid dependence therapy, Jarrod McMaugh speaks to AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about in ODT aimed at reducing cost barriers for patients.

Jarrod takes us through the changes to opioid dependence therapy which came in on July 1, with methadone liquid, Suboxone films, Subutex tablets and the LAIB buprenorphine now Section 100 community access medications, and subsidised under the PBS.

He explains changes to the existing staged supply funding arrangements through the Pharmacy Programs Administrator.

“As a cost barrier, it’s significantly better for clients now,” he says.

But it means changes for pharmacy, and Jarrod explains how these will work, using examples.

“The timeline of when pharmacists, the pharmaceutical industry, wholesalers, software vendors and doctors… when they became aware that these changes were on their way was much less time than the government themselves were aware of it.

“They started implementing the changes significantly longer in time before we all found out.

“It’s one thing to say we need to remove this as a cost barrier, because that clearly is the most important outcome that has come from this…but we also have to be recognising the fact that pharmacies, and doctors, have to make this program work and that means we have to make sure that the new way of doing things will actually work.”

Jarrod outlines the discussions PSA had with the Commonwealth to ensure it would work – including what happens when a pharmacy pays for a quantity to be provided, but then dispensing it becomes no longer appropriate – and other challenges for pharmacies such as now being paid in arrears.

He also notes that as with Medicare, when there’s Government funding “you are looking at in real terms a reduction in the value of that payment over time”.

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify