Compare the pair: Guild

TRIALS need to be undertaken to establish the cost-effectiveness of embedding pharmacists in residential aged care facilities compared to community pharmacy outreach services, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia believes.

In its submission to the Aged Care Royal Commission, released on Fri, the Guild flagged concerns over proposals to embed non-dispensing pharmacists in care homes.

“The service roles should not be duplicated, and patient care must not be fragmented by employment of embedded pharmacists,” the submission said.

“The best way to integrate community pharmacy with residential aged care facilities is by an outreach program using local community pharmacists via facility-based pharmacy aged care packages.

“The government-funded trials of embedding pharmacists in residential aged care facilities should assess the costeffectiveness, economic benefit and outcomes from a patient, and workforce perspective on various options including a comparison with a community pharmacy outreach model.”

The Guild also called for the Residential Medication Management Review (RMMR) and Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) programs to be replaced by “a more holistic and flexible funding model through facility-based pharmacy care packages, which is based on clinical need,” due to “the complexity, inefficiencies, fragmentation and costs” of the current review programs.