Pharmacists should receive Medicare funding for consultations under state-based pharmacy prescribing trials, the Productivity Commission has recommended.

The commission’s Five-Year Productivity Inquiry report, released last week, also called for PBS subsidies to cover pharmacists’ scripts for S4 medicines as part of the trials.

It said expanded powers for pharmacists and nurse practitioners would “increase healthy competition” in medicine; however, “more trialling and empirical investigation will be needed”.

“Funding coverage through [the] MBS and PBS should also be considered, given access to affordable healthcare is a primary motivation for the trials,” it added.