Page 1755 - Week 05 - Thursday, 10 May 2018
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reporting of prescribing information occur at least daily and to continue advocating for a nationally compatible scheme for real-time prescription monitoring.
By introducing this legislation today the ACT joins Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia in establishing a legal framework to support the implementation and use of a monitored medicines database. The monitored medicines database proposed in this bill will enable health professionals to have access to information about controlled medicines supplied to their patients.
This will promote and protect public health and safety by supporting clinical decisions about the prescribing or supply of monitored medicines. Only health practitioners that are involved in the prescription and supply of monitored medicines, such as doctors, pharmacists and some nurse practitioners, will have access to the database.
The legislation seeks to enhance ACT Health’s existing drugs and poisons information system, otherwise known as DAPIS, that the health protection service has been using since 2014. DAPIS contains information on controlled medicines prescription approvals and dispensing records in accordance with existing legislative requirements. The proposed upgrade, called the drugs and poisons information system online remote access, or DORA, will enable health professionals to use DAPIS to check what monitored medicines have previously been prescribed or supplied to a patient.
While it is already mandatory for pharmacies to report controlled medicine supply information within seven days, upon the passing of this legislation I intend to make a regulatory amendment to change this to daily. We will take the time over the next few weeks to continue to work closely with dispensers about the impact of this amendment. Making this regulatory amendment would ensure the information available is as up to date as currently possible. As I have said, it is my intention to make this regulatory change as soon as possible upon the passage of this legislation.
We will also consult with stakeholders about whether mandatory use of DORA by doctors and pharmacists prior to prescribing or dispensing controlled medication is something that could be implemented once we have a nationally compatible scheme. In the interim the rollout of DORA will be accompanied by an extensive engagement and education campaign. The use of the system by health practitioners is voluntary, so a stakeholder engagement group will also be established to advise how to best encourage uptake of the system by health professionals, and to influence decision-making in order to maximise public health outcomes.
The use of DORA in the ACT will complement existing safeguards that help protect the public from the misuse of prescription medicines. These safeguards include the requirement for prescribers to apply for approval to prescribe a controlled medicine for a patient who is drug dependent, or for a patient who requires the controlled medicine for more than two months.
Prescribers are also required to declare whether the patient is drug dependent with each approval application. I am pleased to say that, significantly, ACT Health will also be adding a new declaration to its approval application form so that prescribers
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