Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: ACT's proposal for pharmacists isn't radical, it's common sense

So at lunchtime today, I was catching up with one of our advertisers just across the road, having a cup of tea. He owns a health-adjacent business and we got chatting about community pharmacies - like the one I go to - and what they can do to survive at a time when the big players, like Chemist Warehouse, are taking over.

I said to him that I feel community pharmacies need a real unique selling point. You can get almost everything you want from anywhere now, right?

I think they need permission to do more prescribing themselves - that’s what will make them relevant again. Most of us would choose to go to our local pharmacy for a prescription if we could, rather than trying to get in to see our GPs, who are chocka and often unavailable, or standing in a queue with 25 other people at Chemist Warehouse.

Instead, you’d walk into your local pharmacy and be one of two people in line.

And just as I picked up my phone to leave this tea date, an alert came through: Seymour says pharmacists should treat more so you don’t need to see a GP. How’s that for serendipity?

ACT’s proposal would allow pharmacists to prescribe antibiotics for chest or ear infections, more pain relief or ointments for skin infections. It would also let them provide skin lesion triage and monitoring, manage long-term medications for appropriate patients and order blood tests.

We’re talking about people on things like statins or diabetes medications - drugs they’ll be on for the rest of their lives.

This is basically about stopping people from having to see a doctor every 12 months just to get the same prescription renewed - something that’s inevitably going to happen anyway.

ACT is bang on with this idea. This isn’t radical at all. Pharmacists in other countries are already trusted to prescribe things like antibiotics for strep. I mean, most of us - you and I - can look at a chest infection and say, “You know what? That looks like a chest infection.” If we can do that, I suspect pharmacists, with all of their medical training, can do it pretty accurately too, don’t you?

My only question is: why do we have to wait until November for something that is just common sense? If ACT can do this, surely they can do it now - especially heading into winter.

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.