Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 9, to delete lines 11 and 12.

This group of three amendments will provide that the Minister for Health may make regulations for prescribing for common and uncomplicated conditions in retail pharmacy businesses, also called community pharmacies. Amendment No. 3 is purely technical in nature. It removes textual amendments to section 32(2)(l) of the Irish Medicines Board Act 1995 in order to accommodate new provisions. There are no implications for the Bill beyond this.

Amendment No. 4 makes the addition of the new provisions. As Deputies will recall, we undertook on Committee Stage to bring forward proposals to enable pharmacists to prescribe, and we very much appreciated the support to do so. The Minister for Health is anticipating the delivery of recommendations from the pharmacy taskforce which he established, and I am told these will be completed soon. We are aware that an important recommendation from the taskforce is that pharmacist prescribing should be introduced in a stepwise manner. We want pharmacists to play an expanded role in our health services alongside their colleagues in other healthcare professions. We know they can do so and there is a lot of success with this in other countries. It is important to introduce changes in a phased manner and in consultation with stakeholders.

The amendment of the Irish Medicines Board Act will allow the Minister for Health to establish the necessary secondary legislation to introduce the first phase of pharmacy prescribing. This first phase focuses on community pharmacies. The legislation will support prescribing activity by community pharmacists for a set of common conditions. This will be a small set of conditions initially but it could be expanded over time. It will also include prescribing for the oral contraceptive pill.

Following the passage of this Bill, secondary legislation will be drafted. This will be a set of regulations to govern the prescribing activity. Clinical guidance will also be put in place and training for pharmacists will then be developed. Pharmacists will have to participate in training before they can undertake any prescribing activity. The prescribing activity will be part of what can happen in a retail pharmacy business, which we also call a community pharmacy, and the regulations that govern those settings.

What we aim to do is to expand not just the role of the pharmacist but the range of options available to people, for where they can seek care and advice for some simple, common ailments and we want to free up some capacity in other areas of our health services. Pharmacists are already providing advice to people every day on their medication and this, in many ways, is an extension of what they are already doing.

I know the House will be interested to hear what the common conditions will be. There is not a final decision on this yet. The pharmacy taskforce has been considering common condition services offered by pharmacists in other jurisdictions. It is taking a clear and evidence-based approach to its recommendations. The Minister will be taking its recommendations into consideration and consulting the key stakeholders before making a decision.

See this speech in context