Should patients be able to buy prescription medicines at their local pharmacy without seeing a doctor first? Or be able to collect their prescription medicines at the local supermarket?

These are some of the options canvassed now the Commonwealth government is negotiating the seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement with pharmacists.

Groups representing pharmacists and doctors are putting forward their own cases about how healthcare should be delivered in Australia, where it’s delivered and who delivers it.

Arguments are playing out as a type of ‘turf war’ between the professions as each side discusses which is the safest, most cost-effective way to deliver healthcare over the next five years.