Interested in participating?

Training Requirements

Pharmacists are required to successfully complete additional education and training through an accredited education provider to participate in the Queensland Community Pharmacy Scope of Practice Pilot.

Pharmacists who are already enrolled will be completing their training through two providers to satisfy the requirement to undertake prescribing training and clinical practice training.

For pharmacists undertaking training from June 2024 onwards, there is one education provider currently offering the full accredited training:

Training Commitment

Pharmacists interested in completing the training should be prepared to commit to approximately six months of training in order to complete the course.

Currently, training is only available through James Cook University, so the following is only a guide of what to expect. Other providers may have slightly different requirements.

• Study:
  • Safe prescribing course including:
    • Requirement to find a suitable designated prescriber to supervise learning
    • 120 hours of experiential learning
  • Clinical training courses:
    • Two workshops that must be attended in-person, each four days’ duration
• Assessment:
  • Possible written assessment, and
  • an OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) assessment at the conclusion of the 3 subjects.
• June 2024 - fully enrolled.
• January 2025 - JCU are currently taking expressions of interest for enrolments for the January 2025 cohort. You are encouraged to register your interest and JCU will contact you towards the end of 2024 when enrolments open for the next intake.

James Cook University (JCU): Pharmacy Full Scope Program

Intakes

Expression of Interest – James Cook University

Register your interest for the Pharmacy Extended Scope program

Alternative training providers

It is anticipated that additional training providers will become available.

If you are interested in being notified when alternative training providers commence offering enrolments, please register your interest in receiving updates and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Queensland, will notify you as soon as possible.

Cost of Training

Full details of the costs of training are available from the relevant training provider.

• For JCU, please refer to their website: https://www.jcu.edu.au/pharmacy-full-scope/key-dates-and-fees

Available funding

On 11 June 2024, the Queensland Government confirmed an allocation of $6 million to subsidise course fees for pharmacists in Queensland undertaking the additional training required to participate in the pilot.

We are currently awaiting finalisation of the funding agreement with Queensland Health that will provide detail on:

• Subsidy amount per student,
• When the subsidy will become available, and
• Conditions of accepting the subsidy, including the conditions under which the subsidy amount will be recouped by the funding administrator in the event that the student does not successfully complete the course.

In the meantime, we can confirm that:

• Pharmacists who have already enrolled in the June 2024 JCU intake will be eligible to access the subsidy, and
• The funding is intended to only subsidise the cost of undertaking the training, there will be a student contribution needed to cover the full cost of the course.