The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has focused on four key areas in its 2025 pre-budget submission, submitted to Treasury in January 2025. The Guild’s recommendations aim to improve patient health outcomes by ensuring equitable and enhanced quality access to medicines and health services.
Community pharmacies are an important part of primary healthcare and play a central role in medication management, harm minimisation, and the treatment of common health conditions. Pharmacies are increasingly offering services like treatment of uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) and a growing range of common health conditions, including in residential aged care settings.
However, to continue delivering these services sustainably, targeted funding and policy changes are required. In addition to securing a sustainable community pharmacy secgtor, these changes will help alleviate stress on the broader healthcare sector as pharmacists are increasingly enabled to practise to their full scope.
The Guild’s pre-budget submission presents four target areas:
- Dedicated funding for Dose Administration Aids in residential aged care homes
Pharmacies play a key role in ensuring safe medication management in aged care facilities through Dose Administration Aids (DAAs). However, current funding under the Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) bundles all medication services together, leading to inconsistencies and resource limitations. The Guild is calling for dedicated funding for DAAs to support pharmacies in preventing medication errors and ensuring the safety of aged care residents. - Improvements to Opioid Dependence Treatment Community Pharmacy Program fee structure
Fees for the Opioid Dependence Treatment Program need urgent reform to ensure they fit-for-purpose for the service delivery requirements under the program. The Guild recommends increasing fee for staged supply of oral medication including consumables, from $5.66 to $7.40 and introducing annual CPI indexation. These changes are essential to maintaining the program's long-term viability, particularly in a high-inflation economy. - Funding Cluster change for pharmacy courses under Commonwealth Supported Places
With pharmacy workforce shortages expected to worsen, there is an urgent need to attract more students to the profession. The Guild recommends moving pharmacy from Funding Cluster 2 to Cluster 3 under Commonwealth Supported Places, aligning it with other primary healthcare education programs. This change would increase Commonwealth funding for pharmacy courses without raising student fees, helping universities sustain programs and boost enrolments. - Section 100 Program remuneration changes
Section 100 (s100) medicines, which are used to treat chronic conditions, have a different remuneration structure than Section 85 PBS medicines, despite requiring similar handling, infrastructure, and administrative effort. The Guild recommends aligning s100 dispensing fees with s85 to ensure fair compensation for pharmacies supplying these essential medicines.
As the Government reviews its budget priorities, the Guild remains committed to working collaboratively to strengthen community pharmacy, enhance patient care, and improve medication accessibility across Australia.
