TY - JOUR T1 - Australia to lose agency dedicated to better quality medicine use JF - Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin JO - Drug Ther Bull SP - 2 LP - 2 DO - 10.1136/dtb.2022.000026 VL - 61 IS - 1 AU - Barbara Mintzes AU - Agnes Vitry Y1 - 2023/01/01 UR - http://dtb.bmj.com/content/61/1/2.abstract N2 - Public payment for medicines is key to equity of access, as are reimbursement decisions aligned with genuine therapeutic advantage. To optimise benefits and minimise harm, support for rational medicine use (called ‘quality use of medicines’ in Australia) is also needed. Australia’s independent National Prescribing Service (‘NPS MedicineWise’ or NPS) was set up in 1998 to support quality use of medicines as a key component of Australia’s National Medicines Policy. After nearly 25 years of delivering high-quality services to improve the use of medicines, NPS’ board announced in September that it will close at the end of 2022 due to loss of government funding.Why this happened remains unclear. The first inkling was a review by Professor Lloyd Sansom commissioned by the Australian Department of Health.1 The largely supportive report highlighted: ‘almost universal acknowledgement that NPS MedicineWise produces high quality resources’ and ‘a general consensus of support for the work of the organisation’. The report identified some areas … ER -