Pharmacists recognised for service delivery in Victorian Community Pharmacist Statewide Pilot

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Victoria Branch, is pleased to recognise three pharmacies that have provided outstanding service delivery as part of the Victorian Community Pharmacist Statewide Pilot (the Pilot).

Priceline Pharmacy Bourke Street West, Priceline Pharmacy West Brunswick and Priceline Pharmacy Knox were each recognised for delivering the most services across three of the Pilot’s clinical streams over the past 12 months.

These pharmacies are some of almost 800 pharmacies across Victoria that have been helping patients to access safe and timely healthcare for a range of common conditions, including uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs), resupply of oral contraceptive pill and travel health vaccines as part of the Pilot.

The Guild recognises Priceline Pharmacy Bourke Street West for providing the most uncomplicated UTI treatment consultations as part of the Pilot; Priceline Pharmacy West Brunswick for delivering the most oral contraceptive pill resupply services; and Priceline Pharmacy Knox for administering the most travel health vaccine services.

More than 20,000 Pilot services were delivered to patients at community pharmacies across the State from October 2023 to October 2024.

The Pilot has now been extended to 30 June 2025. An evaluation of the Pilot is currently underway and is due to be released in the first half of next year.

Nam Tran, owner of Priceline Pharmacy Bourke Street West, said all pharmacist staff had been trained to deliver the Pilot services and women comprise a large proportion of the pharmacy’s customer base.

He said the pharmacy delivers Pilot services to patients almost daily.

“When you're offering a service, you need to have that service all the time,” Nam said. “Particularly in the CBD where everything's about convenience. When you're at work or in the city, you want to get access to relief straight away.”

He said with uncomplicated UTI services, “everyone is so happy they can get a treatment straight away,” when patients come to the pharmacy for UTI symptom relief and staff inform them of the treatment options that are available under the Pilot.

Owner of Priceline Pharmacy West Brunswick, Mina Ghobrial, said the pharmacy started receiving phone calls from patients looking to receive Pilot services from the moment the Pilot was announced. All four of Priceline Pharmacy West Brunswick pharmacists are trained to deliver the Pilot services.

As a pharmacist, Mina finds purpose in looking after people and said the pharmacy prides itself on being patient focussed and providing professional services to patients. He said treatment for women’s health needs, including oral contraceptive resupply and uncomplicated UTIs, is something the pharmacy provides every day.

At Priceline Pharmacy Knox, owner Dat Le said they also provide Pilot services most days. He attributes the number of travel health services (which includes administering hepatitis A, hepatitis B, typhoid and poliomyelitis vaccines) the pharmacy has delivered to the pharmacy’s efforts in delivering COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic.

“During COVID, we were known as the destination to do walk-in vaccinations and ever since there’s just been a stickiness that patients come back to us,” Dat said.

Having provided their communities with more accessible healthcare through the Pilot, Nam, Mina and Dat all support enabling pharmacists to do even more for patients.

“Being able to help more patients within our scope, that would be great,” said Nam.

Pictured left to right: Michael Tenne and Nam Tran (Priceline Pharmacy Bourke Street West), Dat Le and Mona Abdelnour (Priceline Pharmacy Knox ) and Mina Ghobrial and Lara Freeman (Priceline Pharmacy West Brunswick).