AUS 5CPA and Federal Budget

(News released by PGA)

The Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and The Pharmacy Guild of Australia was signed in Melbourne on 3 May 2010. The Agreement takes effect from 1 July 2010. Pharmacy Guild factsheet and the full text of the Agreement are attached.

(2)2010 Pharmacy Guild Budget Brief

(News released by PGA)

The Federal Budget and the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement – both released publicly tonight – have delivered certainty for the pharmaceutical sector and significant savings for taxpayers.

A key development providing greater certainty for community pharmacy was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Federal Government and Medicines Australia, which guarantees that there will be no ad hoc policy changes in the medicines pricing area over the next four years. The MoU delivers savings to taxpayers of $1.9 billion over five years, particularly by extending price disclosure to take advantage of discounting of off-patent medicines, including generics.

The Guild was privy to these details, but under our confidentiality arrangements with the Government we were not able to give members a running commentary on Agreement issues. The MoU is a significant new element to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) policy.

For full content, please refer to Source.

(3)Federal Budget and Fifth Agreement Deliver Certainty

(News released by PGA)

The Federal Budget and the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement – both made public tonight – have delivered certainty for the pharmaceutical sector and significant savings for taxpayers.

The Guild welcomes the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Federal Government and Medicines Australia. This provides greater certainty for community pharmacy as there is now unlikely to be ad hoc policy change in the medicines pricing area. The savings imposed through the MoU will have a flow-on impact on community pharmacy, but these were taken into account in the negotiation of the Fifth Agreement, signed on 3 May and released publicly tonight for the first time. The Agreement delivers $987 million in savings to the Government over five years.

For full content, please refer to Source.

(4)Budget Positive for Pharmacy

(News released by PSA)

The Federal Budget is a good one for pharmacy with details of the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement showing total funding of $15.4 billion over the five years, up from $11.6 billion in the Fourth Agreement, the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia says.

Importantly this now includes $660 million for professional services.

National President of the PSA, Warwick Plunkett, said the increased funding has primarily been allocated to patient-focussed professional programs and is a direct result of representations made by PSA.