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Speaker 1: The government's looking at scrapping the three month rule for

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Speaker 1: repeat prescriptions. The idea is you will speed things up,

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Speaker 1: you'll get rid of the backlog. The change would allow

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Speaker 1: patients requiring certain medications to wait twelve months before needing approval.

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Speaker 1: Again from a health professional, Dr Brian Bett is the

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Speaker 1: chair of the GPS and Zties with me Hi Brian.

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Speaker 2: Well, hi Ryan to be here.

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Speaker 1: Good to have you on the show. So currently it's

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Speaker 1: it's three months. What it is that good? Does that work?

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Speaker 2: Well, I'll look through. Three months is what we've had

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Speaker 2: as a standard script, and patients get three months renewals

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Speaker 2: on their scripts. But certainly for some patients where the stable,

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Speaker 2: there is an argument to say that you could extend

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Speaker 2: that time out so you could have a six month

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Speaker 2: script or longer if required. And that's what has been

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Speaker 2: talked about at the moment.

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Speaker 1: So this is a good thing. You welcome it.

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Speaker 2: Look, look, I've always been I've been pretty supportive of this.

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Speaker 2: I think there's a couple of things with it. One,

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Speaker 2: the patient needs to be stable on them medication. Okay,

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Speaker 2: that's really really important. Two and this is the most

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Speaker 2: important thing with this, it's a clinical decision. That the

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Speaker 2: prescriber makes. So what something like this do does is

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Speaker 2: increase flexibility. So you know, a three month script can happen.

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Speaker 2: And actually, for some patients who are not stable, we

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Speaker 2: ask the pharmacist to prescribe every say, two or four weeks,

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Speaker 2: it's not necessarily three months. So there's always been that flexibility.

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Speaker 2: So this extends the time out that the script could

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Speaker 2: run for without review. So yeah, it gives flexibility to

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Speaker 2: the amount of time that the scripts are required to

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Speaker 2: be picked up from the pharmacy.

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Speaker 1: Why have we got this arbitrary three month rule in

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Speaker 1: the first place, then, I mean, it seems pretty dumb

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Speaker 1: if we could if the gps are so overwhelmed that

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Speaker 1: they can't even see, you know, new people, let alone

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Speaker 1: those who've got existing scripts, then it seems a dumb

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Speaker 1: rule to have in the first place.

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Speaker 2: It's always been three months. It's something historical. It's been

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Speaker 2: in place for many decades that the three month prescribing rule,

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Speaker 2: and in fact, overseas, if you look at Australia, the US,

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Speaker 2: the UK, there was similar sort of restrictions on prescribing there,

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Speaker 2: but all of those countries have started to loosen this

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Speaker 2: up in terms of flexibility. And again if the patient's

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Speaker 2: stable and it's clinically appropriate and the prescribers is comfortable

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Speaker 2: with that, then they can increase the amount of time

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Speaker 2: or the frequency of the scripts. And that's certainly a

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Speaker 2: very common occurrence now overseas, so we are sort of

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Speaker 2: falling into line with international trends over this.

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Speaker 1: If this was to proceed, okay, sounds like something we

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Speaker 1: should do tomorrow then, Brian Betty, thanks very much for

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Speaker 1: your time. That's doctor Brian Betty, wh's the chair of

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Speaker 1: General Practice New Zealand.

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