Here is a recent report on last week’s COAG Health Meeting:
Sussan Ley moves to monitor painkiller use
- The Australian
- 12:00AM October 7, 2016
Sean Parnell
Health Minister Sussan Ley will seek to revive plans for a national pharmaceutical drug reporting system in an effort to stop people shopping around for dangerous quantities of painkillers and tranquillisers.
At a meeting of the Council of Australian Governments’ health council today, Ms Ley will again raise the need for all jurisdictions to connect to an “electronic recording and reporting of controlled drugs’’ system.
A steering committee has been looking at implementation issues, but health groups are concerned by the slow progress since the federal government made the software available in 2012.
Ms Ley last night said she wanted the states to take to a December meeting of health officials their “well-developed proposals’’ explaining how the system would be implemented.
A framework endorsed by federal, state and territory health ministers more than three years ago warned that painkillers and tranquillisers were causing increasing addiction, overdoses, trafficking and crime.
More here:
Note that this has now all been festinating for three years!
Here is what COAG actually said:
COAG Health Council Communique - 7 October 2016
The Federal and state and territory Health Ministers met in Canberra at the COAG Health Council to discuss a range of national health issues. The meeting was chaired by the Victorian Minister for Health, Jill Hennessy.
Page last updated: 07 October 2016
7 October 2016
The Federal and state and territory Health Ministers met in Canberra today at the COAG Health Council to discuss a range of national health issues. The meeting was chaired by the Victorian Minister for Health, Jill Hennessy.
….. (13 Items omitted.)
Electronic Recording and Reporting of Controlled Drugs (ERRCD) system
Jurisdictions agreed to further progress a national real-time prescription monitoring system that alerts doctors and pharmacists to people who are abusing prescription drugs by doctor or pharmacy shopping. Jurisdictions agreed to bring to the December AHMAC meeting an update on their progress.
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Here is the link:
So the delay continues and all we get in December is an update on the (?non) progress.
Really it is pretty pathetic and irresponsible.
David.
2 comments:
April 21, 2012 12:00AM HEALTH Minister Tanya Plibersek has dismissed a Victorian coroner's concerns that a proposed $5 million electronic system to alert doctors and pharmacists to prescription-shoppers is flawed.
Plibersek defends script alert system
by: Karen Dearne, IT writer, The Australian April 21, 2012 12:00AM
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/plibersek-defends-script-alert-system/story-e6frg8y6-1226333640314
Now Health Minister Susan Ley wants to revive a 3 (more like 4.5) year old project which has been left to fester by bureaucratic ineptitude.
What have the jurisdictions been doing for the last 4 1/2 years?
Do they not already have well developed proposals available now?
Watch out for the next mind-numbing announcement - "The ERRCD will be developed to feed into and feed off My Health Record".
This is lunacy at it's best. Firstly, the common view is that the ERRCD product is deficient with regard to the required standard of the day.
Secondly, the reaction to the Coroners Court from the Department of Human Services is a rolled gold demonstration of inertia.
http://www.coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/resources/49009060-25c7-494b-96ee-ee4578122371/2014+0042+response+from+dhhs_zanis.pdf
Permit me to make two quick points before I hurl my computer through the window.
1. More deaths are attributable to S3's, rather than S4's and/or S8's, yet,the power crazed bureaucrats muddle along as usual, protecting their patch, at the expense of us all.
Can somebody tell them the suicide drug of choice in the western suburbs for young people is Panamax, mixed with Red Bull and Vodka! ..or, do they not matter?
2. The ERRCD program -or any Dr Shopping program for that matter- is ineffectual and a waste of time because it creates a bigger problem than it solves.
Clinicians simply do not have the tools to administer any sort of care other than to prescribe...
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