“No Australian should experience medicines-related harm because of the language they speak, the culture they hold, or their ability to navigate healthcare services safely.”
– PSA National President, Professor Mark Naunton MPS
Medicine Safety: Culturally and linguistically diverse community care
The eighth report in PSA’s Medicine Safety series, shines a light on the scale and nature of medicine safety issues in Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
The report reveals:
- In 2022, 4.6 million Australians receiving medicines through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) were born overseas – almost 1 in 3 PBS recipients.
- Among PBS recipients with limited English proficiency, 45% received six or more different medicines.
- More than 2 in 5 people (41%) with limited English proficiency rated their health as fair or poor.
The report recommendations call for a more culturally responsive approach to medicine safety, including better access to interpreters and multilingual medicines information, greater uptake of pharmacist-led medicine reviews, improved collection of cultural and language data, and stronger integration of cultural safety into pharmacist education and practice standards.
Supported by PDL
PSA would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by Pharmaceutical Defence Limited (PDL) for PSA’s Medicine Safety series. PDL membership facilitates professional indemnity insurance and risk management advice for most of the Australian pharmacy profession. In these roles, PDL recognises the need to support the profession and set the standards for medicine safety through the development of the Medicine Safety series. PDL encourages all pharmacists to utilise the Medicine Safety resources in their practice and their representation of the profession to the public.
