Wed 29 October 2025

Policy and Advocacy Summary – October 2025

This month, AdPha's policy and advocacy team has been strongly engaged in advancing pharmacist prescribing. The Pharmacy Board of Australia has been tasked by the Health Ministers Meeting to develop a national endorsement for scheduled medicines for pharmacist prescribers. Together with the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and the Pharmacy Guild, AdPha made a joint open submission, proposing a framework that allows pharmacists to prescribe medicines autonomously within their scope of practice, while calling for collaboration with governments to ensure PBS subsidies apply. In parallel, AdPha also met with AMA national, state and territory branches and the RACGP, who expressed support for inclusion of collaborative prescribing models in hospitals and other governed health settings in this endorsement. The Board’s consultation forum was held on 30 October, with AdPha represented by our President, Chief Executive and Head of Workforce Advancement. Link to media release: 

AdPha was in Canberra this month for a series of high-level meetings with parliamentarians and senior officials. We held introductory meetings with Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah and Dr Gordon Reid MP, both members of parliamentary health committees, providing opportunities to introduce our organisation and outline our impact on health systems. We also met with Dan Repacholi MP, the new Special Envoy for Men’s Health, to begin discussions on AdPha’s role in supporting men’s health policy. In addition, we met with senior officials from the Department of Health and Disability and Ageing, where, alongside our regular engagement on medicines policy, we provided a briefing with recommendations from our Pharmaceutical Reform Agreement roundtable series.

We also commenced work on our federal and state pre-budget submissions. A survey has been distributed to all Branch Committees to identify policy and advocacy priorities for the 2026–27 state budgets, and drafting has begun on our federal submission. Thank you to those who have responded - your input is vital to ensuring our advocacy reflects the real challenges and opportunities you face in practice.

In early October, AdPha convened the Future of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Care Roundtable, bringing together senior clinicians, researchers, and consumer representatives, including MS Nurses Australasia, the Neurological Alliance Australia and MS Australia to explore how to improve access, equity, and outcomes for Australians living with MS.

It was also a busy month for policy submissions. AdPha provided feedback to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing on the Draft National Health and Medical Research Strategy, contributed to the consultation led by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on the safety and regulatory oversight of unapproved medicinal cannabis products - our submission on this was highlighted in the AJP, further reinforcing the importance of this work - and prepared submissions to the Pharmacy Board of Australia on the Draft Guidelines for pharmacists on the safe provision of pharmacy services including medicines and advice. We also finalised input to the TGA on the Proposed Annotations to ICH E6(R3) Guideline for Good Clinical Practice (GCP), including Principles, Annex I, and the 12-month Transition Period, ensuring pharmacists’ central role in medicines governance and safe clinical practice was clearly represented.

AdPha has also advanced other key areas of advocacy this month. We were very pleased to see that pharmacy technicians recognised as a distinct occupation under the new Occupation Standard Classification (OSCA, previously ANZSCO), following our advocacy to improve workforce data collection and ensure their expertise and contribution is formally acknowledged across the health system. In addition, together with the Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA), the Gastroenterological Nurses College of Australia (GENCA), and Crohn’s & Colitis Australia (CCA), we called on Services Australia to digitise PBS authority applications for Crohn’s disease to reduce treatment delays and administrative burden, while supporting timely access to therapy.