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IMPROVING PATIENT ACCESS TO INNOVATIVE MEDICINES We already have world-class doctors and healthcare professionals in Australia. Now it’s time to ensure our health workforce has access to top-of-the-line technology and medicines, writes Anne Harris, Board Member of Medicines Australia and Managing Director of Pfizer Australia & New Zealand.
AUSTRALIAN PATIENTS ARE being left behind by a system that has failed to keep up with innovations in medicines and technology. It takes on average 466 days from when a medicine is approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to patients being able to access it through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).1 This is almost 100 days slower than the OECD average and more than 300 days slower than Japan, Germany and the UK.2
24 I THE NSW DOCTOR I WINTER 2024
Timely access to medicines and vaccines can have a life-saving impact. New treatment options not only improve patient health outcomes – they may also take pressure off our healthcare system by keeping Australians out of hospitals. Research by Prof Frank R. Lichtenberg, published in 2023, found increasing the number of new medicines reduced premature mortality and hospital utilisation. Between 1992 and 2021, the number of medicines available on the PBS increased by 49%. The report estimated that each additional medicine on the PBS for a disease reduced the Years of Life Lost from the disease before age 85 by about 2%.3 In addition, the report estimated the number of hospital days per 100,000 population declined by 4.3% between 2002 and 2019. Lichtenberg estimated that, if the number of PBS drugs
had not increased between 1994 and 2011, the number of hospital days per 100,000 population would have been 10.6% higher, and that the 1994–2011 increase in the number of PBS drugs was associated with a reduction in the number of hospital days in 2019 of 2.48 million.4 As evidenced in the AMA’s latest public hospital report card, this has never been more important. In the report, AMA President Prof Steve Robson states, hospitals are at “breaking point”. The ability for public hospitals to treat patients on time is in decline – the proportion of people in all triage categories who completed their emergency presentation in four hours or less in 2022-23 was at just 56%, a 5% drop from last year and the lowest number since 2011.5 Bed block, overburdened emergency departments, and ambulance ramping are also symptoms of the impact of Australia’s ageing population who are increasingly presenting to hospitals with complex chronic health conditions. In 2022, Australians over 65 represented 17.1% of Australia’s total population (compared to 15.9% in 2019), yet this demographic represented 47% of the total patient days occupying beds within public hospitals, according to ABS data.6 The need for vaccines and medicines that keep people living well and out of hospital is critical if we are to alleviate a stretched healthcare system and protect overworked healthcare professionals.