National Medicines Policy Review deferred
The Federal Government has listened to stakeholders including patient groups, industry and professional organisations and has now deferred the finalisation of the National Medicines Policy Review (NMPR) until after the Federal election. The National Medicines Policy has been in place since 2000 and this is the first review.
The review has been underway since August 2021. The review is being led by an Expert Advisory Committee chaired by Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Michael Kidd AM. The Committee received 156 written submissions and consulted with 194 representatives across 135 organisations through its program of meetings and virtual group discussions. It also held two virtual stakeholder webinar forums attended in total by 375 participants.
The draft revised policy was released with initially only a two week window in which to respond. This was extended by a further two weeks and was still considered an inadequate time frame in which to respond especially for patient and consumer groups with limited resources which would result in a lack of patient focus. It is such an important policy which has an impact on all Australians. 96 responses were received on the draft revised NMP.