General information
This guide is based on publicly available information from official sources, including the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Services Australia, Healthdirect and other Australian Government health and pharmacy bodies. It is general information, not personal medical advice, and may change over time. With any medicine, always read the label and use only as directed, and if symptoms persist see your doctor or health care professional. Check anything that affects you with your pharmacist or GP. In an emergency, call 000.
An aged-care pharmacist is an accredited Australian pharmacist who focuses on medicines for older people, especially those in residential aged care or receiving aged care at home. They carry out formal medication reviews funded by the federal government, advise facility staff on safe prescribing and administration, and, since 1 July 2024, some now work on site in residential aged care under a new funding program. The services cost the resident and the family nothing, because the federal government pays for them (Pharmacy Programs Administrator). For the wider view, see our medication management guide.
What does an aged-care pharmacist do?
An accredited pharmacist working in aged care has three main roles. They carry out a Residential Medication Management Review (RMMR) for people in residential care, or a Home Medicines Review (HMR) for people living at home, including those receiving aged care at home. They advise the nursing staff on safe administration, drug interactions, and chances to stop a medicine that is no longer helping. And they support the facility's Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) work: staff education, audits, and medication policy.
To do this work, a pharmacist trains and is credentialed as an accredited pharmacist through a recognised program, and keeps that accreditation current through ongoing professional development. Accredited pharmacists usually work independently or through a pharmacy that services several facilities, and they are paid through federal funding, not by the resident or the home.
RMMR and HMR: the two medication reviews
The two reviews are the same idea in different settings. A general practitioner (GP), or in some cases an eligible specialist, refers the person, an accredited pharmacist reviews every medicine they take, talks with them and their carers, and writes a report back to the GP with recommendations. The GP then decides, with the resident or their substitute decision-maker, which changes to make. A separate follow-up service can later check whether those changes were carried out.
| RMMR (residential care) | HMR (at home) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | A permanent resident in residential aged care | Someone living in the community, including people receiving aged care at home |
| Who refers | The resident's GP or an eligible specialist | Your GP or an eligible specialist |
| How often | Up to once every two years, sooner if the referring doctor deems it clinically necessary | Up to once every two years, sooner if the referring doctor deems it clinically necessary |
| Cost to you | None, federally funded | None, federally funded |
Pharmacy Programs Administrator, medication management programs.
Common findings include the same medicine prescribed twice by different specialists, medicines that are no longer needed, interactions between medicines, and chances to safely stop one whose risks now outweigh its benefits.
A pharmacist's review produces recommendations, not orders. Nothing changes in a resident's medicines until their GP agrees, which is why a question about a medicine is, in the end, one for the GP.
Quality Use of Medicines across the facility
Where a review looks at one resident, Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) looks at the whole facility. A QUM pharmacist audits how medicines are stored, given, and disposed of, reviews facility-wide patterns like rates of sedating or strong pain medicines, runs staff education, and helps shape the home's policies on medication incidents and emergency supply. The Pharmacy Programs Administrator pays for the QUM service on behalf of the federal government. Each quarter, a payment based partly on the number of beds goes to the pharmacy or pharmacist business that holds a service agreement with the home, and the rules require the service to be provided at no charge to the home (QUM Program Rules). For families it is mostly invisible, but its value is safer prescribing across the whole home rather than in any one visit.
On-site pharmacists, funded since July 2024
From 1 July 2024, the federal government began funding on-site pharmacists in residential aged care, a significant change in how medication support is delivered (Aged care on-site pharmacist, health.gov.au). Rather than visiting as an external reviewer, an on-site pharmacist is embedded in the home: they join case conferences, attend GP rounds, train nursing staff, review medication incidents, and advise on individual residents close to real time.
Participation is voluntary for homes, so not every facility has one, and the funded hours scale with the size of the home (Aged care on-site pharmacist, health.gov.au). A home that takes up an on-site pharmacist cannot also receive RMMR and QUM services from visiting pharmacists, because the on-site role is designed as an alternative to them. If a home does have one, the on-site pharmacist is a useful person to raise a medication question with, and the clinical care coordinator can arrange a conversation.
Dose administration aids in aged care
Dose administration aids (DAAs), the sealed weekly packs that sort medicines by day and time, work differently in residential care from the consumer program covered in our Webster packs and dose administration aids guide. The community Dose Administration Aids Program does not cover people living in residential aged care (Pharmacy Programs Administrator). In a residential home, the home usually arranges packing through its pharmacy and can tell you whether there is any cost to the resident. The resident still pays the usual Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) or concession price for the medicines inside the pack. Families usually do not need to set this up, because the home's care team organises the supply.
How do you choose a pharmacy for a relative?
It depends on where your relative lives. In residential aged care, the facility chooses its own pharmacy, so you do not pick, but you can ask useful questions: which pharmacy the home uses, whether it has an on-site or regular visiting accredited pharmacist, how often residents' medicines are reviewed and whether a review is arranged after a hospital stay or a new diagnosis, and how often staff receive medication training.
For a relative living at home and receiving care through the Support at Home program or the Commonwealth Home Support Programme, you can choose their community pharmacy. They may also be eligible for the consumer dose administration aid program, a Home Medicines Review, and a MedsCheck (a shorter medicines check in a private area of the pharmacy), depending on each program's criteria (Pharmacy Programs Administrator). When comparing pharmacies, it is worth asking whether they deliver packed medicines, whether they have a pharmacist who conducts Home Medicines Reviews, and whether they are used to working with home-care case managers. The case manager can usually suggest two or three pharmacies they deal with regularly.
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Frequently asked questions
The setting. An RMMR is for a person in residential aged care; an HMR is for someone living at home, including people receiving aged care at home. Both are federally funded, both are done by an accredited pharmacist, and both send a report to the GP.
