Pharmacists should be allowed to prescribe any medicine they want within their scope of practice, the president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia has declared, adding that the Federal Government should not raise Medicare rebates for GPs.

In a rambunctious speech to a pharmacy student conference, reported by the Australian Journal of Pharmacy, Professor Trent Twomey said pharmacist prescribing under any form of medical supervision would be “bloody insulting”.

Some pharmacy stakeholders supported supervised or protocol-based prescribing, Professor Twomey said.

“They only want you to be able to prescribe if it is within their preferred building and as long as there is another medical practitioner making sure that you are smart enough to be able to do it.