Guidelines for Prescribing, Authorising and Dispensing - Australian ...

accordance with the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock
(http://www.daff.gov.au/livestockexportstandards ); the amounts of the various
drugs required are listed under Standard 4, Vessel preparation and loading, Tables
A 4.1.7 and 4.1.8 (see also section 28).
The air transport of animals, particularly horses, and the supply and use of PARs in
the absence of an accompanying veterinarian is a vexed issue. The Australian
Equine Veterinary Association has highlighted the legal and ethical problems
involved, if restricted drugs are made available to grooms who have limited training
and no accreditation. In these circumstances, veterinarians who are asked to
prescribe and supply drugs for such use are advised to consider the potential legal
and ethical implications.
14 Animal welfare
It is the veterinarian's responsibility to ensure that animal welfare is a primary
consideration when prescribing, authorising, dispensing and using drugs.
15 Veterinarians’ lawful entitlement
A registered veterinarian is authorised to obtain, possess, use or supply most
drugs for the lawful practice of their profession, but within the specific limitations
described below. The authorisation is limited to the treatment of animals under the
veterinarian’s care and, where a prescription or authority is written, only applies to
the person having charge of the animal(s) or the manager of a licensed feed mill or
premix supplier.
16 Wholesaling
Generally, a registered veterinarian must not sell drugs by wholesale, unless they
have the appropriate licence.
Wholesaling involves selling to other authorised persons for the purposes of ontrading.
A veterinarian must not supply or prescribe drugs on the request or order
of another person in a situation where they have not personally satisfied the
requirements of the PAD checklist – see section 5.
The supply of a Schedule 4 drug by a veterinarian, on a written order or
authorisation issued by another veterinarian, is an appropriate activity, comparable
to the filling of a prescription by a pharmacist. The label should include the details
of the supplying practice, but should indicate that the product was supplied on the
order of the authorising veterinarian. Appropriate records should be kept of such
supply.
It is primarily the responsibility of the authorising veterinarian to ensure that
the PAD checklist criteria are met.
The bulk purchase of drugs by a number of separate veterinary practices should
not be regarded as wholesaling, providing there is no on-selling outside the
purchasing group. Likewise, the emergency supply to a neighbouring practice or a
travelling veterinarian should be treated as supply by authorisation. Such
transactions should be fully documented.
AVA Prescribing and dispensing guidelines
Version 1.0 February 2005
Updated 02/09/08
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