The Commonwealth Government has announced more than $82 million in additional funding to ensure 150,000 cancer patients can access safe and effective treatment each year.
The funding will be delivered under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to assist patients with essential chemotherapy drug infusions.
Patients undergoing cancer treatment and their families will have certainty that timely access to safe and effective treatment will be available through their hospital or pharmacy.
The Government will also improve patient safety and care by removing unnecessary red tape for clinicians prescribing, processing and claiming for PBS medicines.
Clinicians in public and private hospitals will now be able to use a patient’s medication chart to dispense and claim PBS medicines.
These changes will enable clinicians to spend more time with their patients and less time completing duplicate paperwork.
The new funding will be delivered from 1 January 2014 and will provide $152.66 per infusion to meet the higher costs of providing chemotherapy treatment.
The new funding and simpler administration will deliver real benefits for patients, their families and friends, hospitals, pharmacies and health professionals in the fight against cancer.
30 November 2013