Page 1756 - Week 05 - Thursday, 10 May 2018
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must declare whether they have checked DORA each time they submit an application to prescribe controlled medicines to the Chief Health Officer.
ACT Health has also published controlled medicines prescribing standards that guide health professionals in the safe supply of controlled medicines. The health protection service monitors prescriber compliance with the prescribing standards using the DAPIS alert system and has the option to take regulatory action where concerns arise. In the 2016-17 financial year the health protection service responded to more than 12,000 DAPIS alerts and took action in more than 1,350 matters which concerned a range of issues including doctor shopping, compliance with regulations, or where a patient had obtained substantial quantities of controlled medicines.
At present both doctors and pharmacists are limited in their ability to identify patients who may be displaying signs of dependency or drug-seeking behaviours. Importantly, the rollout of DORA in the ACT will provide prescribers and pharmacists with access to information held in DAPIS that may support their clinical decision-making. DORA can help health professionals to make more informed clinical decisions and help stop doctor shopping across the ACT. DORA will also help doctors to identify risks earlier and refer patients who are experiencing signs of addiction to the most appropriate treatment. It will also help to protect the wider public from the on-selling of prescription medicines. The Chief Health Officer will have responsibility for maintaining the monitored medicines database, which will facilitate information available to health professionals in DORA.
It is clear to me, especially after discussions with health ministers at the most recent COAG health council meeting, that the only way to protect our community by monitoring medicines in real time is through a nationally compatible scheme. I urge the commonwealth government to take concrete steps immediately to provide the necessary technical advice to jurisdictions so a nationally compatible scheme can be rolled out as soon as practicable. The ACT remains poised to adopt a national scheme when it is finally rolled out. In the meantime we are adding additional protections to do what we can to help keep people safe in the ACT because at present there is no monitoring scheme in New South Wales, and cross-border issues such as this exist across the country. Again I reiterate that the commonwealth rollout of a nationally compatible scheme is overdue.
ACT Health has been actively represented on the implementation steering committee for the commonwealth’s electronic recording and reporting of controlled drugs and strongly supports the progression of this solution. In the interim ACT Health will continue to work closely with pharmacy software stakeholders, local stakeholders and the commonwealth government to improve the rate of reporting by pharmacies to the database, whether that is through a national scheme or on our own. Importantly, today’s amendments prepare the ACT to participate with other states and territories in any national monitored medicines database initiative being led by the commonwealth.
The introduction of this bill is positive, important and necessary for the ACT. The rollout of DORA will provide clinicians with real-time access to the most up-to-date information held in the database, offering them a vital resource for monitoring purposes in order to protect their patients from harm. I reiterate that we will continue
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