CONCERNS have been raised around the evaluation processes for health reforms by the peak GP lobby, following the decision to expand Qld’s Scope of Practice Pilot. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Vice President and Qld Chair, Dr Bruce Willett said, “if a pilot is being extended before it has been started, let alone appropriately evaluated, then it does raise concerns about the importance of properly evaluating patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness in the decision-making processes. The RACGP strongly objects to the Pilot, where pharmacist prescribers will write out scripts for various conditions and then “sell meds to patients” based on their recommendations. “This pilot creates a strong conflict of interest,” Willett asserted. “There is a reason why we have always separated the prescribing and dispensing of medications.” Willett also added that “front of mind is the fact that Qld is facing a severe shortage of pharmacists”. “The net result of this pilot is likely that it will be not only more difficult to see your GP, as they try to track down what the pharmacist is doing, it will also be more difficult to access your medications because many pharmacists will be busy doing other work,” Willett explained. “Healthcare reform needs to make our system safer and more efficient, we should not be pursuing a Band-Aid approach.” President Dr Nicole Higgins also spoke out against the expansion decision saying, “while GPs value the work of pharmacists, and we back team-based models of care where pharmacists maximise their skills to the full, patient safety must come first”. “It would have made more sense to wait for the recommendations from the federal scope of practice review before expanding the pilot,” Higgins concluded. JG