A cost-benefit analysis of Pharmacist Only (S3) and Pharmacy Medicines (S2) and risk-based evaluation of the standards. Final report.

The Cost-Benefit Analysis and Risk Assessment of Pharmacist Only (S3) and Pharmacy Medicines (S2) and Risk-Based Evaluation of the Standards Project used a number of studies and various methodologies to address the issue of non-prescription scheduling and the ‘Standards for the Provision of Pharmacist Only and Pharmacy Medicines in Community Pharmacy’ (Standards is also used in this report for convenience). Personnel consisted of academics and research staff from The University of Sydney, The University of South Australia, The University of Queensland and consultants from Healthcare Intelligence Pty Ltd, M-TAG Pty Ltd and John G Kelly & Associates Pty Ltd. Research groups were developed to focus on specific stages of the project: the Qualitative Assessment Group was responsible for delivery of the Review of Literature and the Qualitative Study; the Epidemiology Group was responsible for the delivery of the Epidemiology Stage of the Study of Professional Interventions which included a Census, a Sample Study (linked to a Post- Marketing Surveillance Study) and a Clinical Panel Assessment Stage; the Health Economics Group had the primary responsibility of undertaking the economic analysis of the data gathered from Epidemiology Stage of the Study of Professional Interventions. No other studies of a similar nature were found in the published or grey literature. It appears that decisions relating to the promulgation of various scheduling arrangements for non-prescription medications internationally are made on grounds other than on research data. The lack of a previous conceptual and/or theoretical approach presented a major challenge to the research team. The overview of the research as outlined in Figure 2 (Section 1.1 Project Overview) therefore represents an innovative and possibly a seminal approach to future international studies. An issue which created a major obstacle was that of pharmacy recruitment. Both in the Census and Sample Study, extensive efforts and resources had to be made available to recruit community pharmacists. The reasons for this reluctance to participate in the study must inevitably be multi-factorial