New national program targeting harmful and unnecessary medicine use in Australia

1 July 2026

Monash University is launching a nation-wide program to give general practitioners, pharmacists and nurses the support and confidence to deprescribe medicines that are causing harm or are no longer helpful.

SUPPORT-Meds is funded by a $5 million Quality Use of Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Pathology (QUDTP) grant from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, and takes aim at high-risk medicines.

Using a nationwide network of ‘knowledge brokers’ as well as online learning and evidence-based resources, the program will first focus on deprescribing medicines for sleep (benzodiazepines and Z-drugs) in older people, and opioids for persistent noncancer pain. It will then expand to include proton pump inhibitors, antipsychotics for changed behaviours in people living with dementia, NSAIDs, and gabapentinoids (gabapentin and pregabalin) for pain.

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