Codes, Guidelines and Policies

The Pharmacy Board of Australia has developed codes, guidelines and policies to provide guidance to the profession. These also help to clarify the Board’s views and expectations on a range of issues.

Codes and guidelines are approved by the National Board and may be used as evidence of what constitutes appropriate professional conduct or practice for pharmacy in proceedings under the National Law or a law of a co-regulatory jurisdiction against a health practitioner.

Quick reference guide

For ease of reference, the Board has published a quick reference guide to its guidelines, to help pharmacists identify the appropriate document to read.

• Quick reference guide to Pharmacy Board guidelines (251 KB,PDF), Word version (562 KB,DOCX)

Codes

Guides

Guidelines

Position statements

Policies

Policy directions

Under Section 11 of the National Law, as in force in each state and territory, the Ministerial Council may issue a National Board with policy directions.

Retired Codes and Guidelines

For codes and guidelines that no longer apply, please see Retired Codes and Guidelines.

FAQ and Fact Sheets

For more information, please see FAQ and Fact Sheets.

1. The Guidelines: Mandatory notifications about registered health practitioners have been updated on 29 June 2020 to include minor formatting and word changes and changes to the flowcharts on pages 20, 22 and 26 of the guidelines.
2. The Guidelines: Mandatory notifications about registered students have been updated on 29 June 2020 to include minor formatting and word changes and sections 39 and 40 of the National Law in Appendix A.
3. The Guidelines for dispensing of medicines have been updated on 15 March 2023 to include changes to the qualifications and competencies published by the Board in Guideline 12.1 which outlines options for ensuring the competence of dispensary assistants, dispensary technicians or hospital pharmacy technicians.
4. The Guidelines on practice-specific issues - Guideline 1 (List of reference texts for pharmacists) has been updated on 15 March 2023 to include changes to the titles of currently available reference texts.
5. The Joint statement on compounded medicines – Pharmacy Board of Australia and Medical Board of Australia was updated on 14 October 2024 to include minor changes to align with the revised Guidelines on compounding of medicines that came into effect on 1 October 2024.