ACT pledged<\/a> to let pharmacists treat more conditions, and make it easier to open new pharmacies if elected.<\/p>\nThe proposal would also see pharmacists manage stable long-term conditions, cut red tape stopping new pharmacies from opening, and introduce 24-hour prescription collection through “secure electronic lockers”.<\/p>\n
The party said the change would ease pressure on GPs by getting pharmacists to treat more everyday conditions, have them manage long-term medication and conduct skin checks.<\/p>\n
GP Practitioners chair Dr Buzz Burrell said outsourcing was a costly and temporary solution to the problem of overworked GP clinics.<\/p>\n
“ACT isn’t innovating, they are recklessly setting up a shadow system instead of supporting the existing one to do its job.”<\/p>\n
He said up to $100 million per year had been earmarked for the scheme – which he believed should instead be put into general practice.<\/p>\n
Burrell said continued underfunding of primary healthcare meant that pharmacies, too, would soon be over capacity.<\/p>\n
The scheme would allow pharmacists to treat things like head lice, scabies, and oral rehydration, with the hope to extend to chest infections, ear infections, skin infections and acute pain.<\/p>\n
Burrell said many of the ailments ACT had proposed for pharmacist treatment could mask more serious issues.<\/p>\n
“Skipping the GP is a dangerous gamble with patient safety,” Burrell said. “You can easily miss that critical window to catch a catastrophic illness before it’s too late.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"General Practitioners Aotearoa says ACT’s proposal to expand pharmacists power is a red flag for a failing health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-565263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}