Community Update was formerly known as Community e.news.

August/September 2006

Community e.news is a regular NPS newsletter, keeping consumers and community organisations updated on what NPS and others are doing to promote quality use of medicines (QUM) in the community

In this edition:

• Common colds need common sense, they don't need antibiotics 2006 campaign
• Multicultural Mental Health Australia wins National QUM Award
• National Medicines Symposium 2006. Highlights:
• • Information about medicines is a fundamental right of consumers
  • The pharmaceutical gap in priority medicines
  • Consumer perspectives and the importance of dialogue with health professionals
• Stakeholder Reference Group discusses how to reach the 'hard to reach'
• Community engagement in Pomona targets diabetes
• Australian Prescriber — Important to plan ahead when travelling with medicines
• MedicinesTalk Winter issue out now
• Rural Project Schemes report published

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Common colds need common sense, they don't need antibiotics

Twenty-five percent of Australians still incorrectly believe that antibiotics can treat a common cold.

The NPS Common colds need common sense, they don't need antibiotics 2006 national campaign aimed to change incorrect beliefs about treating colds with the following messages:

• Common colds need common sense, they don't need antibiotics.
• Antibiotics are not the solution for colds as they only work on bacterial infections. Common colds are caused by viruses and usually get better on their own in 5-7 days
• Antibiotics won't help a cold get better faster, won't stop a cold from getting worse, and won't stop a cold from spreading to others

What you need to do is take it easy, relieve your symptoms, and see your doctor or pharmacist if it gets worse.

Using antibiotics when they are not needed contributes to the spread of antibiotic resistance.

This makes antibiotics less effective when they really are needed.

The keynote speaker at our recent National Medicines Symposium, Professor Richard Laing of the World Health Organization (WHO), said that antibiotic resistance is now a priority worldwide public health problem.¹ WHO research shows:

• many strains of bacteria are resistant to treatment with antibiotics
• less research is being done on new antibiotics
• countries with greater use of antibiotics have higher levels of antibiotic resistance.

Our 2006 campaign activities targeted parents and carers of children aged 2-9 years old, and included:

• Media stories on national television (Channel Nine with Kerri-Anne Kennerley); in rural, regional and metropolitan press, including Coffs Harbour, West Gippsland, Maitland, Bega, Mt Gambia, Roxby Downs, Albury, Melville, and Freemantle newspapers, and on radio (e.g. Gippsland, Toowoomba) and SBS ethnic radio.
• Radio advertising during July
• Newsletter articles promoted to every Australian child care centre and primary school to incorporate into their parent newsletters.
• A Harvey catches a cold and visits the doctor book and brochures sent to every Australian general practice, child care centre and central public library
• Brochures were also sent to community pharmacies, children's hospital pharmacies and community centres.

The strategies and resources detailed below, were developed in consultation with members of the Community Quality Use of Medicines Working Group, Consumers' Health Forum of Australia and peak children's services representatives, including the Child Health Association, and these were tested with consumers in March.

Harvey catches a cold and visits the doctor, our latest children's book that tells the story of Harvey the wombat who catches a cold, visits the doctor with his parents and receives advice to relieve his symptoms, rather than an antibiotic prescription.

Common colds need common sense, they don't need antibiotics, a brochure to help GPs and pharmacists explain the limited role of antibiotics for treating common colds, provides common sense and evidence-based advice on treating symptoms and alerts people to symptoms that should be seen by a doctor.

More than 400 children's services organisations registered to participate in new information sessions where staff learnt the latest evidence-based approach to managing colds and infection control, how to recognise symptoms and timing of when children are infectious, and the role of antibiotics in treating common colds.

If you have any queries about the campaign, contact us.

¹ Kaplan W. Laing R. Priority medicines for Europe and the world. Geneva; WHO, November 2004 (accessed 6 July 2006).

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Multicultural Mental Health Australia wins National QUM Award

Multicultural Mental Health Australia (MMHA) is the winner of the Community QUM Award category for their 'No More "Mualagh" Depression Medication Project at the National QUM Awards 2006 presented on 8 June 2006 at the biannual ceremony held at Parliament House, Canberra.

The National QUM Awards are an initiative of NPS and the Pharmaceutical Health and Rational use of Medicines (PHARM) Committee, recognising the achievements of a variety of projects, programs and activities within the QUM sector.

The Depression Medication Project focuses on educating Afghani people living in rural Australia about depression, how it is treated and the safe use of medicine. Meg Griffiths of MMHA accepted the award.

A range of materials were developed including English and Dari fact sheets for consumers, a fact sheet for health professionals and community service announcements. 'Mualagh' is a Dari word meaning 'floating in sad uncertainty'.

The Highly Commended award went to the Katherine West Health Board Aboriginal Corporation for their Safer Use of Medicines — Engaging Consumers project and was accepted by Jill McDonald. This project developed a process of delivery of medicines to remote communities in Australia.

The awards ceremony was held as part of the National Medicines Symposium 2006.

For more information on MMHA, visit www.mmha.org.au.

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National Medicines Symposium 2006

Leading health experts gathered in Canberra on 7-9 June for the 2006 National Medicines Symposium, the fourth biennial conference on QUM. Around 450 GPs, pharmacists, nurses, community organisations, consumers, government personnel, researchers and academics attended the event, focusing on the theme Balancing beliefs, benefits and harms — how beliefs and behaviours influence QUM, and how we balance, measure and communicate benefits and harms.

Information about medicines is a fundamental right of consumers

Professor Lloyd Sansom, Chair of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, presented on 'informing benefits and harms' and argued for the need to ensure that information relating to decisions by regulatory authorities for registration and subsidy of medicines should be freely available in the public domain.

'All the information that is considered relevant by the user should be available in an easily accessible and understandable format. This is a fundamental right which should not be challenged' said Professor Sansom. More.

The pharmaceutical gap in priority medicines

Professor Richard Laing from the World Health Organization presented on 'Priority Medicines for Europe and the World'. He highlighted the need for increased research and development to address the global public health threats resulting from lack of innovation in the development of effective medicines to treat common diseases for which there are limited choices available.

Professor Laing stated the highest priorities globally are the public health threats caused by antibiotic resistance, pandemic influenza, cardiovascular disease and neglected diseases. 'There is a possibility that in 50 years time we could be living in a world without antibiotics which will be a worse place than before the creation of antibiotics' he said. More.

Consumer perspectives and the importance of dialogue with health professionals

Consumer views were an integral part of the program and were well represented at the symposium. A consumer voice was included on the scientific program committee, with community organisations invited as speakers and session chairs, and presenting work in sessions and in posters. 20 consumers were funded to attend. Perspectives were brought by:

• Janet McDonald, AM, National Breast Cancer Centre in the opening debate
• Professor Ebba Holme Hansen, Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Denmark and Associate Professor Christopher Newell, Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Health Care in the plenary session, Balancing beliefs and behaviours
• Perspectives from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and rural and remote communities:
  • Henry Councillor, National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, in the plenary session Balancing beliefs and attitudes
  • Meg Griffiths, Multicultural Mental Health Australia, Beyond Words: Lessons on translation, trust and meaning from the 'No more mualagh' project
  • Margaret Craig, bushqum, Health literacy or low literacy? Issues around medicines education
  • Jill McDonald, Katherine West Health Board Aboriginal Corporation, Balancing beliefs and behaviours about medicines in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory
  • Amanda Justice, NPS, and Dea Delaney Thiele, NACCHO, The influence of the social determinants of health on indigenous quality use of medicines in urban and remote settings
  • Frances Vaughan, Centre for Remote Health, Alice Springs, Pharmacy out bush: An evaluation of remote pharmacist services
  • Melanie Cantwell, Consumers' Health Forum of Australia, A community engagement approach to support quality use of medicines in rural areas with 'hard-to-reach' communities
• Multicultural perspective
  • Abd-Elmasih Malak, Federation of Ethnic Communities' Council of Australia, in the opening debate
  • Jennifer Davis, NPS, in the plenary session Balancing Beliefs and Attitudes
  • Poster : Doris Kordes, Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia, Jennifer Davis, NPS, Reaching culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumers via education settings: Curriculum based strategies of the Multicultural Community Quality Use of Medicines Program
• Seniors perspective
  • Diana East, Council on the Ageing (Queensland) Inc., Seniors Quality Use of Medicines: Encouraging seniors to get to know their medicines and enjoy better health? - The Queensland Experience
  • Linda A Kehoe, NPS, A multi-site case study of the Seniors Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) Peer Education Program: Assessing the evidence for effectiveness
  • Poster: Brenda Currie, NPS, and COTA National Seniors Partnership, How does the involvement of trained volunteer peer educators (PEs) influence the beliefs and behaviours of seniors around medicines use?
• Perspectives of consumers with chronic conditions
  • Katherine Vaughan, NPS, The medicines knowledge, skills and practices of consumers with type 2 diabetes and chronic pain: The QUM issues and implications across the socioeconomic scale
• Partnerships
  • Hannah Baird, NPS, and Melanie Cantwell, CHF, Partnerships in action: National Prescribing Service and Consumers' Health Forum of Australia

In addition, Margaret Artist (NPS) presented a poster on Debunking the myths on antibiotics for common colds in children.

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Stakeholder Reference Group discusses how to reach the 'hard to reach'

Twenty-two people from a range of national organisations representing community interests participated in a consumer stakeholder reference group meeting in Sydney on 14 June.

Participants shared their knowledge about reaching 'harder to reach' consumers, considered how NPS can work collaboratively with organisations to implement QUM work, and identified opportunities for NPS QUM programs to reach priority groups of people it is not reaching now.

Lynn Weekes, CEO, NPS, and Hannah Baird, Manager, Community QUM Program, started the day, providing an overview of NPS and the QUM program for the community.

NPS has previously held two consumer consultation meetings in 2003 and 2004 to inform the Community QUM program.

For more information, contact us.

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Community engagement in Pomona targets diabetes

More than 60 adults with diabetes, including seniors, and 100 school children participated in a diabetes awareness day held on 11 May in the historic Noosa Shire, QLD.

A range of diabetes issues were discussed in the separate children's and adult sessions, including medicines and healthy eating. A local doctor, pharmacist, dietician and diabetes educator from the Sunshine Coast were available to answer consumers' questions and tell them how to better manage their diabetes, and where to find independent sources of medicines information.

Kath Vaughan from NPS attended, along with Melanie Cantwell and Claudia Cresswell from Consumers' Health Forum of Australia (CHF).

Community forums are part of the CHF Community QUM Project to help health consumers in rural, regional and remote areas manage their medicines wisely, safely and appropriately. CHF is an NPS community QUM program partner and CHF has facilitated more than 20 forums since 2004.

For more about CHF, visit www.chf.org.au.

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Australian Prescriber — Important to plan ahead when travelling with medicines

If you intend to travel overseas, it is important to plan ahead to deal with the relevant legal, customs and PBS restrictions on traveling with medicines, according to Nicholas Zwar, Professor of General Practice, Schools of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of NSW, in the latest issue of Australian Prescriber.

Each year, over 4.4 million Australians depart on short-term trips overseas. Many of these travellers take medicines regularly. Supply, packing and storage are common issues that they must consider before traveling.

'It is important to make sure that [you] have sufficient quantities of [your] regular medicines prescribed and dispensed before travelling. Medicines subsidised by the PBS can only be taken or sent out of Australia for personal use and there are legal restrictions on the quantity of PBS drugs that a traveller can take or send overseas' said Professor Zwar. More.

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MedicinesTalk Winter issue out now

The winter issue of MedicinesTalk covers community information sessions, tips on managing diabetes and the medicines involved, plus information on common colds.

Read the latest issue of MedicinesTalk. MedicinesTalk is produced by consumers for consumers to encourage people to use medicines wisely, especially among people who use multiple medicines. There are currently 2,500 subscribers to MedicinesTalk including community organisations, support groups, health and care providers and consumers. Feel free to subscribe to, use and pass on the stories in MedicinesTalk to other consumers and consumer organisations seeking to know more about their medicines, subject to appropriate acknowledgment of NPS as the source.

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Rural Project Schemes report published

For people living in rural and remote areas, it's often hard to find out and access medicines, independent medicines information and health professionals. That's why we supported 16 QUM projects, which were run by community organisations and local councils with the backing of rural divisions of general practice. A report of these local projects is now available online.

The report, Rural Project Scheme 2004/2005 Summary of Activity and Evaluation Reports, describes how 16 community groups and health services reached more than 70,000 people, nearly 5,600 health professionals and involved over 30 community organisations to promote QUM during 2004 and 2005.

More than 142 events were held across the nation from Bruny Island (TAS) to Kununoppin (WA), top end communities (NT) and Mt Perry (QLD) to Ceduna (SA), Coonamble (NSW) and Nelson (VIC).

Participants included people with high QUM needs: seniors, isolated communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, ethnic communities, people with chronic conditions and carers.

The project brought a range of QUM issues to the table and provided a friendly rural forum for inclusive community discussion. Awareness of and access to medicines, medicines information and health professionals are some of the key issues facing people living in rural and remote Australia.

The full project report provides useful pointers for holding QUM sessions in rural communities and can be used as a reference by any group or organisation planning to hold QUM events in the future.

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National Prescribing Service Limited (NPS) is an independent, non-profit organisation for Quality Use of Medicines. We provide accurate, balanced, evidence-based information and services to help people choose if, when and how to use medicines to improve their health and wellbeing. We are member-based and work in partnership with health professionals, government, pharmaceutical industry and consumers. NPS is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

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