Ms Kathy Maher:

It is ultimately about patient choice. Patients need to be comfortable with their own locality, with their own pharmacist and with whoever provides them with the best care. We have seen through our behaviour and attitudes work that patients do not always choose for a particular reason. They tend to go by their locality, their service and what is closest to them. We know that 85% of the country lives within 5 km of a pharmacy, and 50% lives within 1 km of one. Even when there is an out-of-town pharmacy, patients tend to go where they choose to have the best care and where they maybe have built a relationship with the pharmacy over many years. That is where they tend to go.