Pharmacy Guild National President, Professor Trent Twomey has told Guild members that negotiations to bring forward an 8th Community Pharmacy Agreement (8CPA) are a real opportunity to resolve the problems created by 60-day dispensing.
Speaking at the opening plenary session of the Pharmacy Connect Conference in Sydney earlier this month, Professor Twomey says pharmacists needed an agreement to start as “soon as practicable.”
“It allows us to implement sufficient funding mechanisms to accommodate the disruption of 60-day dispensing,” he told members.
“It will provide certainty and viability of community pharmacy for the next five years.”
The Guild suspended its campaign on 60-day dispensing after the federal government agreed in principle to an early commencement date of the 8CPA on 1 March 2024, 15 months before the current CPA was due to expire.
“The Guild’s success of our public information campaign means we enter negotiations in a position of considerable strength,” Professor Twomey said.
It’s the first time in the 30-year history of the CPA a federal government has agreed to an early start date.
