Some health policy thought bubbles should be burst at inception.

Experienced health executives know that policy ideas pushed by interest groups, those characterised by clinical ignorance, fuelled by unrealistic enthusiasm and blindness to the red flags that litter clinical practice, lead to health outcomes most sane people want to avoid. 

Unfortunately, some of those ideas survive and it appears the Queensland Government’s “full scope of pharmacy practice” pilot for the north of the state is one of them.

The confidential draft report being circulated among stakeholders envisages a future where pharmacists are tasked with diagnosing, independently prescribing and then managing patients across 23 clinical conditions from diabetes and acne to COPD and hypertension.