In NSW, appropriately trained pharmacists with suitable facilities can provide eligible patients with hormonal contraception resupply services. A select range of oral contraceptive pills can be provided as part of this service.
Specific eligibility criteria are in place to ensure patients receive safe and appropriate care.
To receive hormonal contraception resupply services at a pharmacy, patients must:
The patient is eligible if they have run out of repeats or their prescription has expired, as long as they meet the above criteria.
If a patient does not meet the eligibility criteria to receive the service by a pharmacist, you must provide them with usual care, and refer them to their usual medical practitioner as appropriate.
*There are additional conditions for management of patients aged between 40 – 49 years (inclusive) due to the increased risk of comorbidities and other background risks. Refer to the Practice Standard for complete information.
If you are a patient seeking information about thie service, please visit hormonal contraception resupply serivces - information for the community.
To provide this service, pharmacists and pharmacies must meet the requirements of and operate in accordance with:
It is important that you read through these documents thoroughly to ensure compliance.
Key requirements for pharmacists and pharmacies include:
Pharmacists carrying out hormonal contraception resupply consultations must do so in accordance with the flow chart of criteria and actions provided in the NSW pharmacist practice standards for hormonal contraception continuation.
Pharmacists can charge a consultation fee for patients seeking hormonal contraception resupply services. This is at the discretion of the pharmacy. This consultation fee will be in addition to the cost of any medicines supplied.
Pharmacies who provide the service are responsible for maintaining their own up-to-date service listings via healthdirect, also known as the National Health Services Directory (NHSD).
Check if your pharmacy has already been listed with the NHSD.
If you have an existing listing, you can update this by emailing amendments to the NHSD team. Please notify them in your email that you would like to include hormonal contraception continuation as a service offering.
If you do not have a listing, to register your pharmacy with the NHSD, complete the online registration form. When the NHSD team contacts you, please notify them that you would like to include UTI treatment as a service offering at your pharmacy.
The oral contraceptive pill resupply component of the NSW Pharmacy trial ran for 12 months, it closed on 27 September 2024. More than 1,800 consultations occurred during the trial period.
NSW Health monitored the outcomes of treatment and care provided to patients during the clinical trial.
Preliminary data from the clinical trial is showing evidence on safety outcomes for trained pharmacists, following a clinical protocol, to provide resupply of oral contraceptive pills to eligible patients. An independent evaluation utilising a more comprehensive dataset and analysis of trial data will be conducted. A final report will be provided to NSW Health in 2025. This report will be used to inform future service delivery models.
The NSW Pharmacy trial continues with treatment of minor skin conditions.
Pharmacists should reach out to their member organisations for further advice and support regarding hormonal contraception resupply service provision.
For questions specifically relating to the research trial, please email the trial leads at NSWPharmacyTrial@newcastle.edu.au.
For general information, pharmacists should contact NSW Health at moh-pharmaceuticalservices@health.nsw.gov.au.
Pharmacies may promote the service offering using their own developed materials in accordance with relevant guidelines. Refer to Advertising health services on the Therapeutic Goods Administration website.
