When the National Prescribing Service (NPS) was launched it was all about promoting better standards of prescribing (“QUM”) and any suggestions there was a cost-saving agenda were decried. Things have changed. The Dept of Health & Ageing funded NPS to the tune of $75.8m during 2005-2009, under the condition that NPS was to deliver $160m of PBS savings to government during those four years. In its latest evaluation report (2008–09 Evaluation Report No. 12), NPS says it has delivered $47m in excess of.....

Medication Management Reviews (MMRs) are either Domiciliary or Residential. They seem a good idea – GP and local pharmacist put their heads together to iron out medication problems for patients, ultimately preventing medication mishaps. It is the mishaps that government is keen to avoid as they lead to unnecessary expensive hospital admissions. If it is such a good idea, why are Pharmacy Guild facilitators geeing-up program officers in divisions to hit targets of 200 MMRs per 100,000 population? And why is national uptake of MMRs only by 10% of GPs? Maybe remuneration is lousy. Maybe....

Data shows that complaints against doctors are either rising or taking longer to resolve, with Medical Board 2005 figures showing some 85 complaints dismissed due to lack of evidence, along with 65 cases still under investigation, compared to 2009 figures of just 29 and 126, respectively. Medical Board information is only part of the picture. Medical Forum conducted a straw poll of male doctors and found that of the 20 we spoke to at random, 11 knew a colleague that had been accused of sexual misconduct by a female patient. Only four reported that the colleague was later found not guilty. Amongst the 20 polled, just nine request a chaperone when conducting an intimate examination of a female patient.