New pharmacy organisation strives to transform rural pharmacy practice and gain public support to influence government policy for better rural healthcare.
Remote and Isolated Pharmacist Association Australia (RIPAA), Media Release, 13 May 2025
Rural and remote patients face greater health challenges and often have less access to health services compared to those in the city.
For many rural Australians, the local pharmacy is the most accessible healthcare provider. While the crisis affecting general practice in Australia is receiving widespread publicity, the challenges facing rural community pharmacies, especially the pharmacies in small towns and remote and isolated areas, are similar but not as well understood. The Remote and Isolated Pharmacist Association Australia (RIPAA) is a new organisation that has established to represent pharmacists practising outside major metropolitan and regional centres. RIPAA’s mission is to ensure that people living in these rural and remote communities have equitable access to quality pharmacy care as an essential part of primary healthcare.
While many rural Australians rely heavily on their local pharmacy, remote and isolated pharmacies face several significant challenges. These challenges include workforce shortages, financial constraints, high and unremunerated workloads, supply issues, and dysfunctional integrated care systems.
In some parts of rural Australia there are fewer than half the number of pharmacists per head of population than in metropolitan areas. Unlike rural GPs there are very limited financial incentives and government supports for rural pharmacists. This means the people living in the larger, well-resourced, regional centres (the hubs) have relatively good access to pharmacists and other health services, while those living in the smaller, less centralized, and less resourced areas (the spokes) do not enjoy the same level of access.
Pharmacists working in small towns and remote areas are often sole practitioners working in a pharmacy system that is geared towards corporate operators in larger metropolitan and regional centres and which does not adequately support rural practice. Rural pharmacies cannot rely on front-of-shop sales, volume, population growth and new user pays services to sustain their business. Additionally, they face higher costs in delivering care than metropolitan pharmacies, largely due to the higher workforce costs associated with attracting and retaining pharmacists in rural areas.
Increasingly, rural pharmacies are called upon to deliver primary health care services. but they do not receive adequate funding for the extended services they provide. Although there is some government funding for activities beyond dispensing, funding models are not appropriately designed to make these services financially viable or even feasible in smaller communities. This means that rural pharmacies are delivering primary healthcare at a loss. It can also mean that patients who have the worst access to care and the highest needs are not getting access to pharmacy support that can improve their quality of life and help save the health system in terms of repeat GP visits, preventable ambulance call outs, and reduced hospitalizations.
Rural pharmacies were most recently in the public spotlight, with the introduction of 60- day dispensing. Affordable access to medicines is vital, but it is important for the rural public to know that the impacts of 60-day dispensing have not gone away as a concern for rural pharmacies, especially the smaller pharmacies outside the major regional centres. Despite the existence of some compensation for this measure, the ongoing viability of rural community pharmacies, especially those serving vulnerable and disadvantaged patients in thin rural markets, relies on government genuinely supporting pharmacies to transition to a more sustainable model. The future of rural pharmacies will depend on the development of models of care that are cost-effective but also viable and sustainable – models which enable rural pharmacies to help meet the evolving needs of their communities and to address the health disadvantages in rural populations.
RIPAA is actively working with governments and other stakeholders to develop sustainable locally tailored models of care that embed pharmacists within rural healthcare teams. RIPAA promotes expanding pharmacist roles beyond traditional dispensing to include a broader range of face-to-face services, including in-pharmacy services, home visits, and aged care support which can significantly improve health outcomes in rural communities. RIPAA emphasizes collaboration between healthcare providers in small towns to strengthen healthcare and improve integration and coordination between services.
To achieve its mission RIPAA is seeking public support, to strengthen its influence on governments at all levels to implement changes that will empower pharmacists, improve healthcare access, and ultimately enhance outcomes for rural and remote Australians. This is especially crucial now at a time when the new government will be made up predominantly of MPs who do not come from rural Australia.
