AMA Tasmania has called on the state government to halt plans for a pilot that would allow paramedics to prescribe medications, following word from “several sources on the ground that this was being progressed without the necessary consultation with key stakeholders.”

During last year’s re-election campaign, Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff promised to introduce “paramedic practitioner roles and change the laws to allow them to prescribe certain medications.”

AMA Tasmania president Dr Michael Lumsden-Steel said scope of practice and prescribing decisions “must be driven by clinical evidence and patient safety, not political promises.”

“We are seeing increasingly clear signs that governments are prepared to take risks with patient safety rather than address the underlying pressures in the system,” Dr Lumsden-Steel said.

“Continued expansion of scope without equivalent training standards and strong clinical governance risks weakening safeguards, white anting established models of care, and further fragmenting care across an already fractured health system.”

Dr Lumsden-Steel noted there was no clarity on how such services would be integrated, funded, or evaluated.

“At the same time, general practice continues to face immense funding pressure while urgent care clinics appear to receive open-ended investment tied also to political commitments. That imbalance raises even more questions about political priorities,” he added.

The premier’s re-election website promised a “pilot to allow community and intensive care paramedics to prescribe a range of medications in line with nurse practitioners.”

Tasmania would not be the first state to grant prescribing powers to paramedics.

Last year Victoria passed legislation to allow paramedic practitioners to prescribe and administer scheduled medicines when treating patients, as Monash University launched a free paramedic practitioners Master’s degree program. Students are trained to treat conditions such as urinary catheter care, wound care and closure, minor infections, dislocations and fractures, with the first cohort of graduates set to be deployed in regional Victoria this year.

Not surprisingly, the Pharmacy Guild was among those celebrating the expanded role for paramedics in Victoria, calling it “another important step towards improved access to healthcare for patients in Victoria.”