Tasmanian pharmacists will soon be given more powers providing more vaccines and prescribing urinary tract infection medication. But medical groups say a plan for them to do more in regional parts of the state, and in aged care, is still a way off.
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00:00 As work starts on a $22 million facelift for the Royal Hobart Hospital's pharmacy, big
00:08 changes are on the way to give community pharmacists more power.
00:12 They'll soon be able to provide more vaccinations.
00:16 Pharmacies will have stock of National Immunisation Programme vaccines sometime in early January
00:21 and be ready to put jabs in arms sometime around the middle of January.
00:26 And from February, pharmacists can prescribe medication for urinary tract infections.
00:30 It will happen for women between the ages of we think 18 and 65 and first presentation
00:37 uncomplicated with nothing else going on.
00:42 The Government says a proposal for pharmacists to prescribe to regional and aged care patients
00:47 is also close.
00:48 That will start to roll out in January but they need to make sure that all those rules
00:54 and regulations and protocols are in place.
00:57 But medical groups say there's still lots of work to do.
01:01 Legislation has to change, the logistics have to be worked out and the processes of educating
01:07 the pharmacists in their role and educating GPs on how to collaborate with pharmacists.
01:13 Proposals like these can often spark fights between pharmacists and doctors but they insist
01:18 they're both on board with the regional and aged care changes as long as they're delivered
01:23 in the right way.
01:24 We're certainly not trying to take work away from GPs because we know there's plenty of
01:28 work around but what we're trying to say is that pharmacy can do more and we can do more
01:32 in collaboration.
01:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]