The RACGP’s outgoing president has defended the college’s political advocacy efforts in the wake of multiple pharmacy prescribing pilots popping up around the country.  

Next year, pharmacists in NSW and Queensland will start diagnosing and treating conditions like skin infections, with patients paying for the consultation and the prescription out of their own pockets.  

The re-elected Victorian Government says it will fund $20 pharmacy consults and partly cover the costs of the scripts they write and dispense.  

Adjunct Clinical Professor Karen Price, who ended her two year term as college president on Thursday, stressed that advocacy took time – it was not one meeting or one conversation.