Under new regulations, doctors and other allied health professionals in Australia who prescribe drugs must include the active ingredient name when preparing scripts for Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and Repatriation PBS (RPBS) medicines.
This means that from 1 February 2021, most medicines will be prescribed by their active ingredient, not the brand name. The only exceptions are handwritten prescriptions, paper-based medication charts in the residential aged-care sector, medicinal items with four or more active ingredients and some other items excluded for safety or practicality reasons.
Active ingredient prescribing (AIP) is part of a wider initiative by the Australian government’s Department of Health to ensure consistent and standardised medicines information, citing the significant risk to consumers arising from confusion surrounding medicines’ active ingredients. The department said that research has shown many consumers know their medication by brand name alone and are prone to taking multiple doses if they are prescribed two different brands containing the same active ingredient.
