Welcome Message

National Prescribing Service Limited (NPS) and the Pharmaceutical Health And Rational use of Medicines (PHARM) Committee take great pleasure in inviting you to attend the National Medicines Symposium (NMS) 2006. The theme for the fourth biennial conference is Balancing beliefs, benefits and harms.

We will address how beliefs and behaviours influence Quality Use of Medicine (QUM) and how we balance, measure and communicate benefits and harms. We are seeking a variety of perspectives and views from health professionals, consumers, indigenous and multicultural communities and our focus will be on how beliefs and behaviours change across different cultural backgrounds and generations, and within systems and settings.

This will be an excellent opportunity to discuss issues about access to information about medicines and medicine use in Australia and other outcomes of the NPS Informing Judgements About Medicines (IJAM) Summit held in Sydney in September 2005.

NMS 2006 is a platform to share expertise and experience, to showcase international and national best practice in QUM - the primacy of consumers, partnership, consultation, multidisciplinary activity, support for existing activity and systems-based approaches.

This stimulating scientific program brings together international and national experts, health professionals, consumers, policy makers, project and program coordinators, researchers and academics, pharmaceutical industry, government departments, health organisations, and medical writers.

We encourage you to contribute to the Symposium with your own knowledge, experience and expertise.

We look forward to seeing you at NMS 2006.

Dr Stephen Phillips, Chair NPS
and
Prof Ric Day, Chair PHARM