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 on a home-care package. 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 on a home-care package. 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) 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 resident in residential aged care | Someone at home, including on a home-care package |
| Who refers | The resident's GP | Your GP |
| How often | Up to once every two years, sooner if the GP deems it clinically necessary | Up to once every two years, sooner if the GP 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 QUM service is paid as a per-resident, per-year payment to the facility through the Pharmacy Programs Administrator, and the facility chooses which accredited pharmacist delivers it. 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 clinical handovers, attend GP visits, train nursing staff, review medication incidents, and advise on individual residents close to real time.
The rollout is staged, and the funded hours scale with the size of the home, so not every facility has one yet. If a home does, 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. In a residential home, the facility's pharmacy supplies the packs, or the medicines are supplied loose and packed on site by nursing staff, and the packing itself is funded through the home's medication agreement, not the consumer program. There is no separate charge to the resident for the packing, though they still pay the usual Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) or concession price for the medicines. Families do not need to arrange any of this; the facility handles it.
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, whether a review is done every year and again after a hospital stay or a new diagnosis, and how often staff receive medication training.
For a relative living at home on a home-care package or the Commonwealth Home Support Programme, you can choose their community pharmacy, and they are eligible for the consumer dose-administration-aid program, a Home Medicines Review, and a MedsCheck, a shorter medicines check at the pharmacy counter. 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 on a home-care package. Both are federally funded, both are done by an accredited pharmacist, and both send a report to the GP.
