PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS (No. 2).

No. 26 of 1949.

An Act to amend the provisions of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1947, as amended by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1949, relating to the writing of Prescriptions by Medical Practitioners.

[Assented to 7th July, 1949.]

BE it enacted by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, as follows:—

Short title and citation.

1.—(1.) This Act may be cited as the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act (No. 2) 1949.

(2.) The Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1947, as amended by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1949, is in this Act referred to as the Principal Act.

(3.) Section one of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1949 is amended by omitting sub-section (3.).

(4.) The Principal Act, as amended by this Act, may be cited as the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1947–1949.

Commencement.

2. This Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.

3.—(1.) Section seven a of the Principal Act is repealed and the following section inserted in its stead:—

Medical practitioners to write prescriptions on official forms.

“7a.—(1.) Subject to this section, a medical practitioner shall not write, in respect of a person entitled to receive pharmaceutical benefits, a prescription for—

(a) an uncompounded medicine the name of which, or a medicinal compound the formula of which, is contained, or is deemed to be included, in the Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Formulary; or

(b) a material or appliance the name of which is contained in the prescribed addendum to the Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Formulary,

otherwise than on a prescription form supplied by the Commonwealth for the purposes of this Act.

Penalty: Fifty pounds.

“(2.) The last preceding sub-section shall not apply—

(a) in any case in which the person in respect of whom, or at whose request, the prescription is written requests the medical practitioner not to write the prescription on a prescription form supplied by the Commonwealth for the purposes of this Act; or

(b) in such other cases or circumstances as are prescribed.”.

(2.) The section inserted in the Principal Act by this section shall come into operation on a date to be fixed by Proclamation.

(3.) Regulations for the purposes of the section inserted by subsection (1.) of this section may be made under the Principal Act, as amended by this Act, at any time after the commencement of this Act, but any such regulations shall not take effect before the date fixed under the last preceding sub-section.