Overview
The NPS was founded in 1998 as part of an Australian Government shift in health policy to address issues around Quality Use of Medicines. NPS' initial mandate was to reduce cost of medicines to Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme by providing clinically-reviewed independent information about medicines to doctors, pharmacists and other health professionals. Many of these materials relate to new drugs or more complex grey-areas in the prescription process.
The NPS's stated goals are to:
- look at challenges and problems with the ways medicines are used or not used
- help doctors with questions they may have about best practice
- help people understand how to take their medicines safely and effectively, if a medicine is needed
More recently, the NPS has assumed a secondary mandate of promoting discussion of basic medicine-related issues in the community, launching its "Be Medicinewise" campaign in January 2011. The campaign was broadcast across a wide spectrum of media channels and addressed common health issues such as lower back pain, antibiotics and the active ingredient of medicines.
Although the NPS claims to have brought wide-ranging savings to the Australian health system, critics have questioned the actual causes and ramifications of such savings. The organisation also came under fire in mid-2010 for its decision to replace its telephone-line pharmacy staff with nurses, which sparked controversy over what many claimed was a desertion of the pharmacists whose interests the NPS claimed to serve.
Read more about this topic: National Prescribing Service