Kerre Woodham: Are 12-month prescriptions too much for community pharmacies?

We thought we'd start with the new 12-month prescription rules. They came into force this weekend and are designed to save time and cut GP visits for patients. But community pharmacists say this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back because it's the latest in a raft of changes in a sector that is fighting to survive. 

The rules mean that people with long-term stable conditions can now get prescriptions of up to a year from their prescriber. And the government says this could save you up to $100 and more in GP fees annually. So that's got to be a good thing and you would think that the GPs would be in support of this too because if they have concerns about their patient's health and well-being, then they can say, well no, I'm not going to give you the one-year prescription, you'll have to come back more regularly. So they can decide. But if they do have an otherwise healthy patient, they can do the year-long prescription, then that frees them up for other patients.

They say that there are too many for them to deal with, the workload is too much. Hopefully this reduces the workload. But for pharmacists, they say the increased competition from Chemist Warehouse and Bargain Chemist, the moves to allow pharmacists to prescribe medicines, and now this, the year-long prescriptions. It's a lot of change that they're having to deal with. 

They say there's going to be no real financial change as a result of the year-long prescriptions, but what it may well mean is less foot traffic through the pharmacies and for these smaller neighbourhood pharmacies, it's the retail sales that help them stay viable in the wake of the competition from these huge hypermarket-type chemists. Health Minister Simeon Brown told the Weekend Collective though that it's a no-brainer that for certain conditions, annual prescriptions become the norm.

Ultimately, GPs and prescribers will make the decision on a case-by-case basis in consultation with their patients. And ultimately, it'll be people with long-term stable conditions who most likely are going to benefit. So for example, someone like myself, I've got asthma, it's a long-term stable condition. In consultation with my GP, those would be the conversations. You think about diabetes, epilepsy, other conditions as well where there's patients with a long-term condition. At the moment, they're having to go back to their GP every three months to get their prescription renewed. Well, actually under this new policy, they'll be able to the GP will be able to give them a 12-month prescription. They'll still have to collect their medication from the pharmacy every three months, but it will save them that prescription renewal and of course the cost and time that goes alongside that for what is medicines that they need and have had probably for many years.

I would have thought absolutely that GPs would think, yes, excellent. You know, I've got healthy patients who have asthma, here's your year-long prescription and now I can see those that need more time. 

I was amazed at the number of people when we first talked about the proposed changes, I was amazed at the number of people who had a real relationship with their chemist.

Like to me, I've got a lovely chemist just up the road and I quite like her, but if I'm in the mall, I'll pop into the Chemist Warehouse and pick up all sorts of things. They have a range of products at really low prices and then I'll pick up things that I might otherwise have got at my neighbourhood chemist. 

But there were people who were passionately loyal to their neighbourhood chemist because they might have diagnosed conditions that GPs had missed or picked up on prescription errors that GPs and more than one caller phoned in about that. And they say that their chemist provide excellent holistic care. They were really really loyal to their neighbourhood chemists. They were really worried that the supermarket chemists were going to put their local pharmacists out of business. 

But at the same time, when you have to make an appointment every three months to see your doctor or to check in with your doctor, pay your $25 to get a repeat of a prescription that you know you need and you know you're going to need for a long time, it makes sense. You know, this is a common sense piece of legislation I would have thought. And sometimes you have to accept that you cannot subsidise an arm of a business, of an industry, of a profession just to keep it going. 

You know, should patients with long-term conditions be paying more, be paying $100 each on average more just to keep an arm of a business going? No, unfortunately. You know, if your local chemist is good enough, surely they will stay in business because you will keep going back there. You know they need your support to survive, so you will go.

The changes I think are good and surely if, you know, you might not see a patient as often if there's year-long prescriptions, but once pharmacists are able to prescribe for certain conditions, surely that will see a lift in business. I think it's a good thing overall for New Zealanders and the professions are just going to have to adapt to survive. 

0800 80 10 80 is the number to call. I'd really love to get your feedback on this one, especially if you are involved in as a pharmacist or working in a pharmacy. How are these changes really going to affect you? Sometimes I think when the media approaches sectors for comment, they'll find reasons to be against something just for the sake of it, just because it seems to be that's what you do. Very seldom do you go, yep, this is brilliant. Yep, there might be a bit of foot traffic falling off, but we'll see that pick up when we're able to prescribe medicines. I don't know, I would very much like to hear from you on this one.

Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.