Prescribing expansions ‘step in the wrong direction’

The RACGP President has raised serious concerns about Australia’s ‘rapidly expanding’ list of prescribers at a time when antimicrobial resistance is growing globally.
 
It comes on the last day of World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week for 2025 – an annual campaign that aims to draw attention to a trend ‘threatening decades of medical progress’.
 
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright said at a time when considerable effort is going into reducing unnecessary antibiotic scripts, ‘we have to be careful about what we prescribe and who prescribes it’.
 
‘It’s another reason why we are concerned about proposals to rapidly expand pharmacist prescribing options,’ he told newsGP.
 
‘Antimicrobial resistance is growing and growing, and it’s a step in the wrong direction to be expanding the number of prescribers.’
 
Pharmacy prescribing has now become commonplace across much of Australia, with peak bodies advocating for pharmacists to be allowed to autonomously prescribe all Schedule 8 medicines.
 
Dr Wright’s calls also come on the same day as Monash University opens applications for its new Graduate Certificate of Pharmacist Prescribing, a course designed to ‘support pharmacists in making safe prescribing decisions and patient assessments’.
 
‘We need to be careful about every antibiotic script, and expanding the ability to prescribe beyond qualified medical professionals doesn’t seem to be a logical direction,’ he said.
 
‘Sometimes counselling people about why they don’t need a prescription takes longer than giving the prescription, but it’s something we really need to be careful about.’
 
According to the World Health Organization’s Global Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance Report 2025, antimicrobial resistance has risen in more than 40% of monitored antibiotics in the past five years.

Using data from more than 100 countries, it also reveals that one in six common bacterial infections in 2023 was resistant to antibiotic treatments.
 
In response, Australian Medical Association (AMA) President and GP Dr Danielle McMullen echoed the RACGP’s calls, saying overprescribing and inappropriate use of antibiotics are major contributors to resistance.
 
‘Australia has traditionally restricted prescribing to medical practitioners, which remains the safest and preferred model,’ she said. 
 
‘We must avoid dangerous experiments, which risk not only fragmentation of care, but also patient safety through antimicrobial resistance.’
 
Earlier this month, the RACGP and the AMA teamed up to speak out about the ‘uncollaborative pursuit of widespread pharmacy prescribing, calling on the Medical Board of Australia to urgently reconsider its consultation into the initiative.
 
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