Accurate, balanced evidence-based information about medicines
Community Update 1 Community Update 1
Community Update was formerly known as Community e.news.
December 2004
Welcome to the first NPS Community e.news
NPS Community e.news is an e publication for consumers, community groups and others interested and involved in the NPS Community QUM Program. We hope that this publication will keep you up to date about the program activities and what others are doing to promote Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) within the community.
NPS Community e.news will be emailed to you every two months - so the next one will be with you in February 2005.
Report to the Australian Government, Department of Health and Ageing
NPS recently submitted a report to the Australian Government, Department of Health and Ageing giving an update on the progress of the NPS Community QUM Program. The highlights included:
- Medimate advertising campaign: Results from the first phase of advertising in January 2004 show that post-campaign 57% of those surveyed recall the TV advertisement compared to 5% pre-campaign.
- Medimate: approximately 1.2 million copies of Medimate were distributed in the first 6 months of 2004 and more than 1,000 people have downloaded Medimate from the website each month.
- Consumer Medicine Information (CMI): awareness of CMI has increased from 24% to 26% while the proportion of consumers indicating they had ever read or looked through a CMI significantly increased from 13% to 18%.
National Medicines Symposium 2004
Thanks to all the representatives of member organisations who attended NMS 2004. The proceedings have been distributed. If you haven't received your copy contact Elana Huthnance at ehuthnance@nps.org.au. Please note, for privacy reasons, this document is only available to people who attended the Symposium.
Planning is already underway for the next symposium so put the date in your diary.
National Medicines Symposium 2006
29 - 31 March 2006
Adelaide Convention Centre
We hope to see you there.
New NPS member organisation: Optometrists Association Australia
Optometrists Association Australia is the 38th peak health organisation to become a member of NPS. Optometrists Association Australia is the peak professional body representing optometrists in Australia. Over 95 per cent of optometrists practicing in Australia are members of the Association.
The Association wants to ensure that optometrists continue to provide the highest quality care and look to the NPS as being one mechanism for achieving this objective. NPS will work with Optometrists Association Australia to find practical ways of making their membership beneficial for their members. For more information about Optometrists Association Australia visit www.optometrists.asn.au
New NPS Directors
NPS Directors Dr Peter Roush, Dr Roger Boyd and Paul Bolt were up for re-election as their terms came to an end at the recent NPS Board Meeting.
Dr Peter Roush (GP representative) did not stand again but remains the chair of the NPS New Drugs Working Group advising the New Drugs Program and NPS RADAR. Replacing Dr Roush is Dr Shiong Tan, a practicing GP from Perth WA. He was elected by the RACGP, AMA, ADGP and RDAA (NPS member organisations) who endorsed him to be their GP representative on the NPS Board for the next three years.
Dr Roger Boyd has been re-elected for his third and final term. Dr Boyd is an inaugural Director of NPS and currently is the vice-chair. Dr Boyd is a Sydney based medical administrator who brings considerable senior management and business experience to a number of public and private hospitals. Currently he is the Honorary Secretary of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators and through his own consultancy provides services in healthcare management, policy and planning to a number of public and private providers.
Paul Bolt, who represents the pharmaceutical industry was also re-elected by his constituencies, Medicines Australia, Australian Self-Medication Industry and Generic Medicines Industry. As an inaugural NPS Board Director, Mr Bolt has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for many years holding senior management positions.
Dr Boyd and Mr Bolt will both remain on the NPS Board for another three year term at which stage they will need to step down after serving three consecutive terms.
Dr Janette Randall has been elected as the alternative Director for Dr Stephen Phillips. Dr Randall is also a member of the Community QUM Program Management Committee, NPS Medicines Line Management Committee and the common colds program sub-committee.
NPS Board Directors are:
- Dr Stephen Phillips, Chair
- Dr Roger Boyd, Vice-Chair
- Dr Shiong Tan
- Dr Richard Abbott
- Mr Paul Bolt
- Ms Susan Hunt
- Ms Jan Donovan
- Ms Jenny Bergin
- Associate Professor Shane Carney
- Mr Allan Rennie
NPS Community QUM Program Management Committee
Jan Donovan has taken on the role of acting chair for the NPS Community QUM Program Management Committee. Jan is temporarily replacing Judy Skinner, who resigned from the position earlier this year. NPS would like to thank Judy. As the inaugural chair of this Program she played an important part building relationships between NPS and consumers. The position of chair will be filled shortly.
It is also a pleasure to welcome two new members of the committee Moya Sandow and Dr Janette Randall, a GP from Brisbane. Moya is a consumer representative from Health Consumers of Rural and Remote Australia (HCRRA) nominated through Consumers' Health Forum of Australia (CHF). Dr Janette Randall was recently elected as an alternate director for the NPS Board and is also a member of the Medicines Line Management Committee and the common colds program sub-committee.
The other members of the Community QUM Program Management Committee include:
- Jan Donovan (Acting Chair)
- Moya Sandow
- Matthew Hunt
- Alison Marcus
- Susan Quine
- Christine Walker
- Lynn Parkinson
- Sue Pluck
- Sheila Rimmer
- Janette Randall
- Michael Bolt
- John Morgan
- Tony Wade
- Abd Elmasih-Malak (Alternative: Conrad Gershevitch)
- Judith Mackson
NPS Medicines Line: Connecting consumers to pharmacists
Results from the latest Medicines Line report show that the number of calls is steadily increasing with a total of 10,374 calls made to Medicines Line during the last financial year.
The majority of callers (72.4%) rang with a question related to their own medicines, while the remaining 27.6% called for someone else (friend or family).
Just over one third of callers (38.0%) were referred to their doctor with 31.0% of callers requiring no further action and 30.8% being able to manage the medicines issue themselves.
The most common enquiry was related to adverse drug reactions (or side effects) (21.3%) with 6.6% of callers asking about interactions and 13.8% enquiring how their medicine worked.
Females called the service three times more than males and the most common age range for callers was 25-44 years (36.7%), closely followed by 45-64 years (33.7%).
Queensland provided the highest proportion of callers (45.5%) and also had the highest uptake relative to the national average. New South Wales and Victoria were the next highest states in terms of absolute call frequency (19.2% and 14.1% respectively). ACT and South Australia provided the second and third highest relative uptake rates compared to the national average.
Antidepressants (19.7%) and antihypertensives (8.5%) were the therapeutic classes that callers most frequently had queries about. The drugs most commonly asked about were Sertraline (3.0%) closely followed by paracetamol (2.9%) and warfarin (2.9%).
Almost half of all callers (43.7%) called Medicines Line due to inadequate information with a further 19.1% calling due to a worrying symptom.
The top four sources for finding the Medicines Line number were government information services, NPS promotion, support groups and the media. Pharmacists, allied health professionals and doctors also rated in the top ten.
Medicines Line is available by calling 1300 888 763, Monday to Friday 9am - 6pm eastern standard time.
Medimate advertising
Medimate was advertised again during October 2004 as part of a second phase of advertising.
Preliminary results from the first phase in January have been analysed and the analysis of the second phase is now underway.
The advertising campaign to date has included two three week spurts of TV advertising - one in January and the other in October this year, bus sides and interiors during October, as well as 12 months of magazine advertising in Australian Women's Weekly, Family Circle, Woman's Day, GoodMedicine and Reader's Digest between January 2004 and January 2005.
Seniors QUM Program
Working with COTA National Seniors
NPS in collaboration with COTA National Seniors is providing peer education sessions to seniors groups in an effort to help seniors get to know their medicines. The aim is to hold 1,500 interactive medicines information sessions with seniors groups across Australia by December 2005.
Thanks to the time and energy of COTA National Seniors, the State-based coordinators and the volunteers, the program is progressing well. If anyone would like to help promote or host one of these free information sessions for seniors contact the relevant COTA National Seniors office in your state:
NSW: 02 9251 6088
ACT: 02 6282 3777
NT: 08 8941 1004
QLD: 07 3233 9141
SA: 08 8232 0422
TAS: 03 6228 1897
VIC: 1300 13 50 90
WA: 08 9321 2133
Working with Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association of NSW
A small pilot program in Sydney and Wollongong is now underway working with the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association of NSW. This program is trialling a seniors peer education model with five different language community groups: Cantonese, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese, Greek. So far 60 peer educators have been trained and 37 sessions have been held.
Rural QUM Program
For the first time Consumers' Health Forum of Australia (CHF), Health Consumers of Rural and Remote Australia (HCRRA) and the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA) are working together with NPS to provide rural Australians with access to independent medicines information. Known as the Rural QUM Program the aim is to raise awareness about existing NPS consumer resources, such as Medicines Line, Medimate and MedicinesTalk. There are three main activities:
Rural Project Schemes
NPS has awarded sixteen grants for QUM initiatives to rural community projects across Australia. These projects are due for completion in June 2005.
To date, five of the schemes have launched their initiatives - Queensland Rural Women's Network, Glenelg Outreach Primary Health, Senior Citizens Centre Committee of Tamworth, Mallee Division of General Practice and Perry Shire Council.
The organisations involved in this part of the program include:
- Aboriginal Resource and Development Services, NT
- Broken Hill Multicultural Women's Resource and Information Centre, NSW
- Coonamble Health Council, Neighbourhood Centre and Community Health, NSW
- Department of Health and Human Services, TAS
- Glenelg Outreach Primary Health, VIC
- Kununoppin and Districts Health Region, WA
- Mallee Division of General Practice, VIC
- Marree Health Service, SA
- Maryborough District Health Service, VIC
- Multicultural Mental Health Australia, SA
- Perry Shire Council, QLD
- Regional Multicultural Communities Network, SA
- Rural Northwest Health, VIC
- Queensland Rural Women's Network, QLD
- Senior Citizens Centre Committee of Tamworth, NSW
- Working Women's Health, VIC
Community engagements
Consumer Health Forum of Australia's (CHF) rural and regional engagements commenced this month in Esperance and Bunbury in Western Australia as part of the NPS Rural Program. A diverse range of consumers and community organisations participated in five engagements held over four days in October 2004. The sessions varied in content and style of presentations, but all the groups provided insight into the issues affecting medicines use of their particular group and gave valuable feedback on National Prescribing Service resources Medimate, Medicines Line and Consumer Medicine Information (CMI). The Pharmacy Guild information on Home Medicines Review (HMR) was also disseminated.
Many of the groups also took the opportunity to look at and comment on the new NPS Rural Resource Kit, which is undergoing trial in a number of centres across Australia.
For stories about current activities and engagements, please go to http://www.chf.org.au/projects/QUM.
Otherwise for further information on the CHF Community QUM Project, please contact Yvonne by email at y.solly@chf.org.au or phone on (02) 6272 5444 ext. 206.
Get to know your medicines: resource kit to help you run your own event
A resource kit will be available in February 2005 to help community groups in regional Australia run events based on medicines issues. This kit will be available in a printed format, on CD and via the NPS website.
CALD QUM Program
As part of the NPS Community QUM Program, NPS and FECCA have joined forces to address some of the medicines issues faced by multicultural communities. The Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) QUM Program has been on the wish list of several organisations for a number of years.
Research
To help develop this program, NPS and FECCA have completed a developmental research project looking at medicines use and medicines beliefs in the Chinese, Greek, Italian and Vietnamese communities. The results are now being finalised and the program will be launched as part of the Transformations Conference in Canberra between the 7th and 9th of February 2005.
Activities
CALD Community QUM program activities include:
- Working with the Adult Multicultural Education Services (AMES) to develop learn to read material about medicines for their Adult Migrant Education Program
- Establishing alliances with FECCA's members and multicultural community groups
- Working with media to raise general awareness in specific communities
- Developing written medicines resources in a number of community languages
- Distributing grants to multicultural community groups so they can run activities addressing medicines issues. (see below)
Community grants
A number of small grants were available to community organisations and groups, who work with CALD communities, to run local activities within their community.
Multicultural groups have been keen to apply for grants to run activities that promote the safe and effective use of medicines in communities across Australia.
NPS and FECCA are pleased with the enthusiastic response and are working together to distribute grants to a wide range of groups, including the Chinese, Greek, Italian and Vietnamese communities. Groups receiving grants will run their activities between February and June 2005.
The groups will encourage people in their community to be more involved when talking about medicines with their doctors and pharmacists. They will share the knowledge and skills needed in making decisions about medicines and help people to find and use reliable and credible information.
If you would like more information about these grants contact us.
Common colds program
Common colds program sub-committee
The common colds program sub-committee provides advice to NPS to assist with the development of the program. Members of both the 2004 and the 2005 sub-committees have just reviewed the report on 2004 activity. NPS would like to extend a big thank you to all those involved in 2004 - Jan Donovan (consumer representative), Denise Fry (health promotion consultant), Sheila Rimmer (consumer representative), John Morgan (pharmacist), Sue Pluck (consumer representative), Naomi Knight (CHF QUM project officer), as well as staff involved from NPS.
We would also like to welcome the current common colds program sub-committee: Denise Fry (health promotion consultant), Alison Marcus (consumer representative), Dr Janette Randall (GP), Suzanne Gleeson (health promotion academic), Sheila Rimmer (consumer representative), and Yvonne Solly (CHF QUM project officer).
2005 common colds program
2005 will be the fifth consecutive year the common colds program has been run. We are currently planning to make sure the 2005 program builds on the success of previous years.
The 2005 program still aims to reduce the inappropriate use of antibiotics for upper respiratory tract infections, and target parents and carers of children aged 2 - 12 years with the message common colds need common sense.
Based on feedback from 2004, NPS is considering expanding the relationships and capacity of child care groups to reach parents and carers of young children and is reconsidering the need to target males in the workforce.
Results: 2004 common colds program
Each year NPS runs a Newspoll questionnaire and part of this survey asks questions about the common colds program. The results give us an indication of the program's reach and changes in consumers' attitudes and behaviours.
Results from the 2004 survey indicate that 21.5% of the general community were aware of the common colds need common sense message - an increase of 8.8% from 2003. The most encouraging result was the decrease in the proportion of the community who reported taking antibiotics the last time they suffered a cold or flu - from 11% in 1999 to 10% in 2001 and now 7% in 2004. The awareness rate amongst parents and carers also increased, with close to 33% of this group indicating they were aware of the campaign. Awareness of the campaign by GPs (80%) and pharmacists (95%) remains high.
These great results can partly be attributed to the repetition of the campaign branding over the four consecutive years. NPS believes the increasing trend will continue into 2005.
MedicinesTalk
The latest issue of MedicinesTalk has just been published. This issue features articles on 'Treating depression: the choices' and 'A positive approach to managing medicines: people living with HIV/AIDS'. Those of you who have already registered to receive a copy will receive one soon! For those of you who haven't, visit www.nps.org.au/consumers where you can find an online version or request to be placed on the mailing list by emailing info@nps.org.au.
NPS supports MedicinesTalk which is published quarterly. It focuses on Quality Use of Medicines (QUM), policies and activities related to QUM, as well as activities and happenings just for consumers and consumer and community groups.
Community QUM Program team
Katherine Vaughan and Hannah Baird have recently joined the Community QUM Program team. These new members join Amanda Bray (team leader), Jennifer Davis and Margaret Artist (nee Fitzgerald).
Hannah Baird
With experience in health promotion, social marketing and policy, a Masters in Applied Science in Social Ecology (MASc) and Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (Marketing and Economics), Hannah Baird brings a variety of experience and knowledge to her new role at NPS. Hannah has worked for the NSW Health Department at the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Advancement and as a communications consultant on a range of different health issues.
At NPS, Hannah will be working on the Rural Community Quality Use of Medicines Program, supporting rural communities to improve their health through greater knowledge and awareness of their medications.
Katherine Vaughan
Katherine joined the Community QUM Program in October and brings with her five years experience working in the health promotion area. Prior to her appointment at NPS Katherine worked at the National Breast Cancer Centre (NBCC) and at the Central Sydney Division of General Practice. Katherine is currently undertaking a Masters in Public Health at University of NSW and has previously completed Bachelor of Social Science and Policy (Hons 1) with psychology major.
While at NPS Katherine will be focusing on the Seniors QUM Program and will also be assisting with the 2005 common colds program.
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