Health · Spatial analysis
Pharmacy Guild of Australia
An accessibility analysis of all 5,800 community pharmacies in Australia, tested against where Australians live.
- Place
- Australia-wide
- Client
- Pharmacy Guild of Australia
- Sector
- Health · Spatial analysis
01The question
What share of Australians can readily reach a pharmacy?
02What Macroplan did
- GIS analysis
- Data analytics
- 01Gathered the location of every pharmacy, supermarket, medical centre, bank and post office in Australia.
- 02Counted the people within 2.5 km and 5 km of a pharmacy in the capital cities, and within 25 km in regional Australia.
- 03Ran the same analysis for GPs, supermarkets, banks and Australia Post offices and agencies, as benchmarks.
- 04Measured choice: the share of people with two or more of each within each distance.
03Published figures
- 5,8005,800community pharmacies assessed
- 368,000+368,000+mesh blocks analysed
- 33distances tested: 2.5, 5 and 25 km
04The project
Macroplan tested how Australia’s pharmacies are distributed in relation to its population, to find the proportion of people with ready access to a community pharmacy.
The assessment covered all 5,800 community pharmacies: those approved to dispense under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. GIS analysis counted the people living within 2.5 km and 5.0 km of a pharmacy in the capital cities, and within 25 km in regional Australia. Identical analyses of every medical centre (GP), supermarket, bank and Australia Post office or agency served as benchmarks.
Macroplan gathered the location of all these facilities and analysed each dataset against the resident population of more than 368,000 mesh blocks, using 2021 population data for the highest possible accuracy. The study also considered consumer choice: the share of the population with two or more of each facility within each of the three distances. The results were split between the greater capital cities and the rest of each state and territory, to show any geographic differences in access.
The result
The findings became a series of tables and commentary comparing access to pharmacies, supermarkets, medical centres, banks and post offices in every capital city and the rest of each state and territory. This demonstrated the efficacy of the pharmacy location rules in providing a national network of pharmacies that optimises the community’s access to prescription pharmaceuticals.
Source: macroplan.com.au (opens in a new tab) “Pharmacy Guild of Australia Accessibility Analysis”, read 13 October 2026.
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