PSA National President opening address at PSA24

Read the transcript of the speech delivered by PSA National President Associate Professor Fei Sim FPS at PSA24 today (2 August).

Thank you, Aunty Joan Bell, for the beautiful and warm Welcome to Country and for sharing her story with us.

I too, would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we meet on today, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation.

In the spirit of reconciliation, PSA acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present. I personally extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

Good morning PSA.

In preparing today’s opening, I reflected on our journey in the past 2 years.

Two years ago, I delivered my first opening plenary at PSA22– I was exhilarated, nervous, but motivated.

This time last year, as I delivered my second opening plenary – I, together with the profession that I love dearly, we were solemn. I would say melancholy at times, but we were cautiously hopeful. We were hopeful because of our belief in our profession, in our community we serve, in our resilience, in our impact and our irreplaceable role.

Today 12 months later, I stand here, together with you PSA members, my Board, Branch Presidents, Branch Committees and the amazing PSA Team, and the 3 words I’ve chosen are optimistic, assured, and focused.

On behalf of our profession, I am grateful to our government. I want to acknowledge and thank our Federal Minister for Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler who will be joining us this afternoon, and Assistant Minister Emma McBride, who is present with us today.

After 15 months of uncertainty, our profession welcomed the signing of the 8th Community Pharmacy Agreement and Strategic Agreement. I want to acknowledge the work of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, their National President Prof Trent Twomey and his team, some of them are with us today. The 8CPA has delivered the much-needed certainty our community pharmacy sector needed.

Also on behalf of the profession, I am incredible proud of PSA’s achievement and signing of the first, historic, Strategic Agreement on Pharmacist Professional Practice is monumental.

For the first time, the Strategic Agreement articulates the Australian Government’s commitment to support the highest standard of professionalism in pharmacy. Through this Agreement, for the very first time our profession as a whole, received formal recognition and support for our professional practice – recognising that we are an essential part of the healthcare team, and importantly the respect that pharmacists deserve as clinicians in this health care system.

For the first time, there is shared vision between our profession and the Commonwealth Government to continue to expand the range of primary healthcare services pharmacists provide, regardless of areas of practice.

The Strategic Agreement gives recognition to pharmacists’ expertise and contribution to quality use of medicines and medicine safety.

It gives confidence to our patients, our funders and our health system. It gives our profession the framework for standards and guidelines moving forward, as we continue to navigate through practice and health landscape changes.

Whilst these are all positive news, as I mentioned earlier, we need to remain focused. The work is not done. Whilst there is ongoing funding for HMRs and RMMRs, and that the Aged Care On-site Pharmacist Program has now formally commenced, the work and viability of our credentialed pharmacist workforce will not be forgotten.

Regardless of areas of practice, I truly have never felt so positive about the opportunity for pharmacists to reach our full potential. These opportunities are driven by real needs of our patients and our health system.

The current Scope of Practice Review is our opportunity – it is what I would describe as a once-in-a-career lifetime opportunity to challenge the very foundation of health system administration – to achieve equity for all health professionals, including pharmacists, in terms of regulations, funding policy and workforce development. Whether it is through our submissions, in formally representing pharmacists on the Expert Advisory Committee, in attending workshops – members can be assured that PSA is making strong representation.

What we want to see is:

Removing of unnecessary red tapes, empowering pharmacists to achieve our full and top of scope in being stewards of medicines safety, to have responsibility for the outcomes of and accountability for the outcomes of medicine use, and to truly be the first port of call for primary healthcare.

Through national harmonisation of states and territories legislation and regulations – patients across the country should be able to access the same level of healthcare access, not just in those areas where their postcodes are in the 4000’s.

Direct referral to pathology – if you’re undertaking a medication review, you should be able to order and access pathology tests which are critical to making meaningful recommendations, consistent with treatment guidelines.

Whether you are prescribing or undertaking medication management reviews, it makes no sense you can’t send a patient for Medicare funded blood tests relevant to that service. And it certainly does not make sense that you can’t contribute clinical notes to a patient’s health record.

There should be consistent funding policies – We should have access to the MBS for consultation, and should be able to prescribe medicines within our scope under the PBS.

Same job same pay – We should get paid the same for providing a vaccination as any other immunisers.

Our workforce should be supported to be integrated within multidisciplinary care teams in a meaningful way – in terms of roles, recognition and remuneration.

We can do more, but we must also be supported and remunerated to do more. We cannot keep adding more work, we cannot keep expecting pharmacists to do more with less.

We need technology to be a facilitator, not a barrier.

We need the teams around us to take on more technical work so that we can focus on more cognitive work.

We need regulation that is up to date, that supports safer, more efficient care, not get in the way of it.

We need to spend more time using the full extent of our skills and expertise to provide patient care.

These are sensible and very long overdue asks. Once the report is finalised, we urge the government to start implementing the Review’s recommendations immediately.

Executed well, this will dramatically simplify our unnecessarily complicated health system and help all health professionals, including pharmacists, increase their capacity to provide care.

I want to take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge representatives from the Department of Health and Aged Care for their work, and PSA appreciates your work and we look forward to continuing our collaborative effort to achieve this aim.

Australians deserve a health system which functions better than it does now.

This afternoon, I hope you will join me in attending Minister Mark Butler’s address.

Today Minister Butler will officially launch our vision for the future of pharmacy practice in Australia – Pharmacists in 2030.

Pharmacists in 2030 leverages the real appetite for change in our health system, driven by patient needs, and importantly provides a roadmap for the next 6 years on how pharmacists’ full potential can be realised.

It helps government, policymakers and funders understand our value and potential.

While I won’t spoil its contents, I will say a huge thank you to every one of you, our members, our elected officials, PSA Team, the Australian Pharmacy Leaders Forum member organisations who are also here today, and our consumers, who contributed to this document.

Martin Luther King Jr once said: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Pharmacists – We know it hasn’t been easy. We know practice is getting harder and more complex. We know it can be overwhelming. But, we must keep going.

As we continue to evolve our profession to meet healthcare needs of Australians, I see the next 5 years as critical in the development and preparation of our workforce.

PSA’s work will focus on building a pharmacy workforce which has the capability and capacity to meet the health needs of Australians into the future.

No matter what, PSA is pharmacy, and PSA is here throughout our pharmacy career, and we should never feel alone. We are here, we are all here to be your career partner to navigate the future together.

It is now time to welcome our Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, and Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health, Emma McBride, to the stage.