November 2026
News
In this issue
| NSW Schedule 4D prescription validity |
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| How can you reduce cyber risk for your pharmacy? |
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| This Month's PBS Changes |
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| Running the monthly update for Fred Dispense |
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NSW Schedule 4D prescription validity
As part of the 1 November 2026 Fred Dispense update, the prescription validity period for NSW Schedule 4D medicines was updated in preparation for NSW legislative changes commencing 5 November 2026.
From 5 November, Schedule 4D prescriptions are valid for 12 months from the date of issue, increased from the previous 6-month validity period. Schedule 4D medicines include those that are anabolic androgenic steroids.
Fred Dispense change
For NSW pharmacies, Fred Dispense now allows applicable Schedule 4D prescriptions to remain valid for up to 12 months instead of 6 months, consistent with the new NSW requirements.
How can you reduce cyber risk for your pharmacy?
Over the past two months we have responded to at least 20 confirmed pharmacy cyber incidents involving phishing emails and rogue remote access software.
Pharmacy staff awareness, strong security controls and proactive monitoring of your network work together to provide the strongest protection against modern cyber threats.
Follow our comprehensive checklist to help reduce cyber risk within your pharmacy.
This Month's PBS Changes
For the full Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits, go to the PBS website at http://www.pbs.gov.au/ where you can search the schedule by drug name.
For your convenience, we've also uploaded a printable summary of this month's important PBS changes to this site.
For Highly Specialised Drugs (HSD) items (CAR and non-CAR), please refer to the Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits as well as Services Australia to confirm whether the PBS item code for a HSD is eligible to be dispensed and claimed by your pharmacy type.