Patients in New South Wales will be able to keep getting treatment from their pharmacist instead of waiting for a GP appointment — despite a push from doctors’ groups to pause the experiment.
Key Points
- A New South Wales trial letting pharmacists prescribe treatments for a wider range of conditions will go ahead despite concerns from five peak medical bodies, who wrote to Premier Chris Minns.
- Under the trial announced in September, specially trained pharmacists can now treat ear infections and wounds and help manage chronic conditions including high blood pressure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
- People can already get treatment for urinary tract infections or oral contraceptive pill refills from specially trained pharmacists instead of visiting a GP.
- Minns has said he will not back down, despite the medical bodies’ October letter calling for the expansion to be paused until a similar Queensland trial could be evaluated.
What pharmacists can now do
The expansion is deliberately practical. Rather than booking a GP appointment for a straightforward problem, patients can walk into a pharmacy and be treated by a specially trained pharmacist for ear infections and wounds, or get help managing long-term conditions such as high blood pressure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Urinary tract infections and contraceptive pill refills were already available through pharmacists under the earlier stage of the trial.
For patients, the difference is time: a pharmacy visit is often same-day, while GP appointments can take days or weeks. That matters in a system under strain — more than a quarter of Australians reported delaying or not seeing a GP in 2024–25, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Why doctors object
The five peak medical bodies that wrote to the premier in October argue for caution. Their case, in essence, is that prescribing is a medical act with risks — missed diagnoses, drug interactions, fragmented care — and that the expansion should wait until Queensland’s similar trial has been properly evaluated. Pharmacists, they argue, are not a substitute for the diagnostic training of a doctor.
It is a familiar argument in every country that has expanded pharmacy prescribing, and it is not without force: the safety of the model depends on training standards, referral pathways and record-sharing between pharmacies and GP practices. The trial’s supporters counter that those safeguards are built in — only specially trained pharmacists take part — and that the alternative, for many patients, is no timely care at all.
A premier who will not budge
Minns has made his position clear: the trial goes ahead. That political backing matters, because expanded pharmacy prescribing is as much a workforce policy as a health policy. With GP shortages biting, governments are looking for every safe way to spread the load, and pharmacies — open long hours, present in almost every suburb — are the obvious pressure valve.
What happens next
The test now is evidence. If the trial shows safe outcomes, shorter waits and fewer avoidable GP visits, other states are likely to follow New South Wales. If problems emerge, the doctors’ call for a pause will gain force. Either way, the argument about who should be allowed to prescribe — and where patients should go first — is now a live political question, not just a professional one.
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Sources
- AAP — AAP