Home medicines reviews help keep patients safe where they live

They may be recovering after hospital, living with several chronic conditions, or caring for someone else while managing their own health. Many are taking tablets, inhalers, drops, patches, supplements or over-the-counter medicines, often prescribed at different times by different clinicians.

A Home Medicines Review (HMR) can be a key part of making medication management and healthcare safer. 

A doctor identifies a patient who may benefit and refers them to a credentialed pharmacist. The pharmacist visits the patient at home, establishes what they are actually taking, listens to how they are managing, and provides recommendations back to the doctor so the best possible plan can be developed.

Medication safety is not theoretical. Medicines can save lives, but they can also cause harm when doses are duplicated, medicines interact, instructions are misunderstood, or hospital changes do not translate safely back home. For patients and families, that can mean falls, confusion, loss of confidence, deterioration, an emergency department presentation or another admission.

From a doctor’s perspective, the strength of the review is that it supports continuity of care. It uses the skills of a credentialed pharmacist as part of a team, with the GP responsible for coordinating diagnosis, management decisions and the overall care plan.

This is the kind of multidisciplinary care we should support. It is collaborative, targeted and clinically useful. It helps patients understand their medicines, gives GPs better information, and supports safer prescribing. It can stop a problem before it becomes an ambulance call or a hospital bed.

HMRs are not just part of safe medication management. They are part of good preventive care. If a patient goes home from hospital with a changed medication regime, or is managing several conditions in the community, a timely review can be the difference between a safe recovery and a preventable admission.

Tasmania understands these pressures well. We have an ageing population, high rates of chronic disease, rural and regional communities with limited access to services, and hospitals under serious pressure. We also have a dispersed population, limited public transport, patchy internet access in some communities, and many patients who cannot easily get to care. When a patient waits weeks for a HMR because of funding caps, workforce limits, geography or connectivity, the risk does not wait.

That is why the current constraints are concerning. Publicly available data shows demand for HMRs is growing. But  each credentialed pharmacist is limited to doing just 30 federally funded HMRs each month. 

Angus Thompson, a credentialed pharmacist working in Southern Tasmania, says he and many of his colleagues nationwide, have sometimes seen their ‘allowed’ 30 patients by the middle of a month and are already fully booked for the next month before it starts.  That is evidence of need.

This concern has not come from one person or one profession. AMA Tasmania’s own GP members have raised it after seeing the value of HMRs in general practice and the harm caused when access is delayed.

It is disappointing that the Commonwealth’s May 2026 Budget maintained the status quo. Credentialed pharmacists remain capped at 30 HMRs per month. They are paid the same per review as in 2019, despite costs rising substantially. There is still no tiered payment system to reflect the time and complexity of reviews, no telehealth option for initial reviews or follow-up, narrow rural travel allowance rules, and too little respect for patient preference about where a review should occur.

A model built around a home visit may not always work well in Tasmania. Travel times, weather, transport, safety and workforce availability all matter. Nor should we assume that asking patients to travel, or simply go online, is realistic. For many older Tasmanians, carers, people with disability and people without reliable transport, getting to an appointment is a major barrier. For others, limited internet access or low confidence using digital systems can make online options just as difficult.

The answer is not to let the program wither under rigid rules. The answer is to properly fund and modernise a service that already does what health reform is supposed to do: support patients, prevent harm, keep people well in the community and make better use of the health workforce.

This is quality, team-based care. HMRs are GP initiated, and done properly, they are clinically integrated and collaborative. The pharmacist brings medicines expertise. The GP brings the full clinical picture, diagnostic responsibility and continuity. The patient receives safer, more coordinated care.

For patients, the benefit can be simple and profound: fewer unnecessary medicines, clearer instructions, fewer side effects, more confidence, and a plan that makes sense at home. For GPs, it means expert support on complex medication issues. For hospitals, it can mean one less preventable admission, one safer discharge, or one patient able to remain well at home.

If we want Tasmanians to stay well at home, we need to support the services that make that possible. The HMR program should be sustainably funded, properly indexed, uncapped, better matched to patient need, and adapted so rural patients are not left behind. Telehealth and other alternatives should be available where an in-person review is not practical or safe, while keeping the service GP-referred and clinically integrated.

This is not radical reform. It is sensible, patient-centred care. A patient’s medicines should help them, not harm them. A doctor should have the best possible information when prescribing. A pharmacist with specialised medicines expertise should contribute meaningfully to care. And a health system under pressure should invest in services that prevent avoidable harm before they reach the hospital door.

Home Medicines Reviews do that work quietly and well. We should be strengthening them, not making patients wait for them.>>>ENDS