The peak body representing pharmacies says community pharmacies are ready, willing and waiting to help in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in regional Australia.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has put forward the “fast start pharmacy proposal” which would involve activating community pharmacies in regional, rural and remote areas.

National President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia Trent Twomey said it was about making sure regional communities were well served.

“What we are saying here is that this is about consumer choice,” he told.

“Over 4000 community pharmacies submitted an expression of interest over a month ago, we found out last week that the vast majority of those had a compliant tender and are ready to start rolling out vaccines as soon as the Commonwealth can make supply available.

“There are … 431 regional communities that either don’t have a general practice or only have one general practice that may or may not have chosen to participate.”

He said there was no logical reason the Commonwealth wouldn’t activate the community pharmacy sector.

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