3 November 2009

The National Prescribing Service Ltd (NPS) and Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA) have won a prestigious National Multicultural Marketing Award for seminars and radio interviews run in Cantonese, Mandarin and Italian as part of the 2008 Get to know your medicines campaign.

The campaign took out the AFL Community Award category at the NSW Community Relations Commission presentation dinner held last night at the Westin Hotel in Sydney.

The Get to know your medicines campaign ran from September 2008 and aimed to promote skills and knowledge around using medicines safely to seniors from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. It built on the same campaign run in 2007 which focused on English-speaking seniors. The seminars were run by 16 ethno-specific organisations across Australia between September and December 2008.

“We are thrilled to receive this National Multicultural Marketing Award and be acknowledged by the Commission for the work we are doing with ethno-specific organisations,” NPS CEO, Dr Lynn Weekes said.

“The risks of using medicines are heightened for CALD seniors, particularly those with low English language proficiency and literacy levels. This is why we are dedicating time and resources to running programs at a community level,” Dr Weekes said.

FECCA Chair, Pino Migliorino said the award shows how effectively NPS and FECCA are working together to bring the safe medicine use message to CALD communities.

“Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds are over-represented in the number of people hospitalised each year for adverse medicines events. FECCA is pleased to be working with NPS to address this issue and ensure culturally and linguistically diverse communities have the same access to vital information about medicines,” Mr Migliorino said.

NPS and FECCA’s work with CALD communities has won other multicultural awards including:

•  2008 Multicultural Communication Award for 2009 Italian Get to know your medicines calendar.
•  2008 Multicultural Communication certificate of commendation for education session resources.
•  2005 National Multicultural Marketing Awards from the Community Relations Commission.
•  2005 Multicultural Communication Award from NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service.

In 2010 information seminars about safe medicines use and good sleep practices will be run in Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Vietnamese, Greek and Arabic.

ENDS

The National Prescribing Service Limited (NPS) is an independent, not-for-profit organisation for quality use of medicines funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

FECCA is the national peak body representing Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.