The Pharmacy Guild of Australia is targeting regional areas and marginal electorates with an advertising blitz in their campaign to stop script lengths being extended from 30 to 60 days.

According to the Australian Pharmaceutical Journal, Professor Trent Twomey, Pharmacy Guild National President, said the ‘Save your Local Pharmacy’ campaign will feature advertising across multiple forms of media ahead of the looming introduction of the policy on September 1..

“Newspapers, billboards, TV, radio and socials: all day, every day, every marginal electorate, until we have a solution,” Prof Twomey said.

Pre-recorded calls from the Guild claiming the changes are going to close pharmacies and families will miss out on medication are also being used.

Anthony Tassone, Pharmacy Guild of Australia Victorian branch president, said robocalling is just one part of the overall campaign.

“It’s about promoting awareness of the concerns that we have and it’s just one part of it,” he said.

“The broad response from people is that when they actually understand more detail of the policy, they do have concerns as to why the pharmacies have to fund the cheaper medicines.”

An escalating campaign

The Health Minister, Mark Butler, announced the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme changes in April, ahead of the 2023-24 budget.

The government said six million people would save more than $1.6 billion over the next four years because they’d be able to collect two months’ worth of medicine for the price of a single prescription.

An independent advisory committee for pharmaceutical benefits, appointed by the Australian Government, recommended the change in August 2018.

The announcement has sparked a months-long and bitter feud between the Department of Health and the Pharmacy Guild.

The government’s own modelling predicted the changes will cost pharmacies $1.2 billion over four years under the reforms, a huge difference from the $4.5 billion cited by the Pharmacy Guild, while Mr Butler has accused the Guild of “scare tactics” over their claims there will be medicine shortages.

The Guild has launched a ferocious campaign, asking members to write to their local MPs using scripts that argue 60-day dispensing “will lead to hoarding, and increase the risk of overdoses, including among children and seniors.”

Mr Butler told Perth Radio station 6PR that the claims were “grossly irresponsible.”

Health Minister Mark Butler called some of the Pharmacy Guild’s claims “grossly irresponsible.” Photo: AAP

The Royal Australian College of GPs and the Australian Medical Association both support the change and have rejected claims that it may lead to overdoses, hoarding and shortages of medicine.

Will the changes lead to closures?

A report by economist Henry Egas argued that while the changes would deliver cheaper medicines for Australians accessing 325 scripts, it would lead to the likely closure of 200 community pharmacies and put 900 under “financial stress.”

Mr Tassone said while the Pharmacy Guild commissioned the report, it was done independently.

“Henry Ergas, one of the most esteemed economists in the country, wouldn’t have put his name to something unless he believes in the findings and makes his own recommendations,” he said.

“Close to 10 per cent of pharmacies are at risk, over 6000 jobs – and our workforce is predominantly women working part-time. Why should they be the collateral damage of a policy for cheaper medicines?”

Critics of the report and the Guild’s rhetoric have pointed to the assumption that loss of revenue includes $20 in retail sales, the average amount of goods people might pick up when they are filling their script, equating to around $6 in revenue for the pharmacy.

A Westpac’s Counting on Community Pharmacies report, published in partnership with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, found spending at pharmacies significantly increased throughout the pandemic.

Between February 2020 and February 2022, the average spend on retail products and health services (other than scripts) increased by 56 per cent, compared to prescription medicines increasing by 5 per cent during the same time period, rising to $123 million spent in January 2023.

The Guild’s political clout

Pharmacist-turned-GP Dr Mark Raines said he isn’t convinced losing $46.92 over 12 months per patient equates to the Guild’s estimate of losses of around $170,000 per pharmacy.

The Pharmacy Guild is a powerful lobby group, established in 1927, and it is known to donate heavily to political parties, particularly in the lead-up to elections.

During the 2021-22 financial year, the Guild donated a total of $577,565 to political parties, including over $300,000 to state and federal Labor Party branches.

It received criticism from the public and some of its members in 2019 after donating $15,000 to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, which has taken anti-vaccine stances.

The market size for Australian pharmacies was estimated to be $26 billion, according to a report by IBISWorld, employing 82,897 people throughout 5,949 businesses.