11 May 2020 - Chemists are using the corona­virus health crisis to push for a permanent increase in their power to issue customers with scripts for medications without a prescription, trigging a fresh stoush with doctors over their scope of their authority.

Under legislation introduced in the wake of the summer bushfire disaster, and continued under the COVID-19 crisis, the dispensing powers of pharmacists were ­expanded to enable them to issue scripts for regular medications without a patient having a current prescription.

The continued dispensing rules allowed pharmacists to issue a one-month supply of a patient’s regular medication once a year.

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