The Pharmacy Board of Australia is being urged to let pharmacists prescribe S4 and S8 drugs independently within their “self-determined” scope of practice without postgraduate training.

The joint submission from the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and Advanced Pharmacy Australia also calls for pharmacists to prescribe under the PBS and order Medicare-funded pathology tests.

Writing to the board’s consultation on a national pharmacist prescribing standard, the groups called for “autonomous prescribing where a health professional undertakes independent prescribing of any scheduled medicine within their individual self-determined documented scope of practice, which is based on completion of accredited training”.

Short-term, they said they wanted autonomous prescribing available nationwide to pharmacists who have completed a postgraduate course for the various state and territory pharmacy prescribing programs.