Pharmacy Health regulation at work: Protecting the public in 2016/17

15 Dec 2017

A profession-specific annual report summary that looks into the work of the Pharmacy Board of Australia (the Board) over the 12 months to 30 June 2017 has now been published.

The report draws on data from the 2016/17 annual report by AHPRA and the National Boards. This information provides a snapshot of the profession as at 30 June 2017, and includes the number of applications for registration, outcomes of criminal history checks and segmentation of the registrant base by gender, age, registration type and principal place of practice.

Notifications information includes the number of complaints or concerns received, matters opened and closed during the year, types of complaint, monitoring and compliance and matters involving immediate action.

Insights into the profession include:

• 30,360 pharmacists were registered in 2016/17. 
• 3,345 new applications for registration were received. 
• Student registration increased by 3.6%, to 7,540 in 2016/17. 
• Pharmacists make up 4.5% of all registered health practitioners in Australia. 
• The number of pharmacists increased by 2.2% from 30 June 2016. 
• 61.9% pharmacists are women; 38.1% are men. 
• New South Wales (NSW) was the principal place of practice for most pharmacists (9,270). 
• The Northern Territory (NT) was home to the smallest number (225). 
• The age bracket with the largest number of pharmacists was 30–34 (6,256). 
• 1,669 pharmacists were under 25 years of age. 
• 151 were aged 80 or over. 
• 373 notifications (complaints or concerns) were lodged with AHPRA about pharmacists. 
• AHPRA closed 355 notifications about pharmacists in 2016/17. 
• 175 pharmacists were actively monitored by AHPRA because conditions had been placed on their registration. 
• Immediate action was taken by the Board on 21 matters relating to pharmacists in 2016/17, compared with 20 instances in 2015/16. 
• 53 complaints were made about possible statutory offences by pharmacists during the year. Most of the new matters related to advertising breaches; 13 related to title protection.

To download this report or to view the main 2016/17 annual report visit the AHPRA website.

In the coming month, AHPRA and the National Boards will publish summaries that break down 2016/17 data for the remaining 14 boards in the National Scheme as well as summary reports by state and territory.

For more information

• Visit the AHPRA website 
• Lodge an online enquiry form 
• For registration enquiries: 1300 419 495 (within Australia) +61 3 9275 9009 (overseas callers) 
• For media enquiries: (03) 8708 9200