National Opioid Pharmacotherapy Statistics Annual Data collection

Clients attend dosing point sites regularly to take their prescribed medication under the supervision of a pharmacist or other health professional. Dosing point site types include public clinics, private clinics, pharmacies, and correctional facilities.

Where were opioid pharmacotherapy drugs provided?

In 2024–25, there were 3,241 locations in Australia where people could get opioid medication. Most of these (77%, or 2,487 sites) were in pharmacies, and this was true in every state and territory (Table S17).

Long term trends indicate generally a steady rise in the number of dosing point sites: 

• There was a 47% increase in the number of dosing point sites between 2010–11 and 2024–25. However, between 2023–24 and 2024–25, the number of dosing point sites decreased by 8%, from 3,530 to 3,241 (Table S17).
• Trend data is not comparable, interpreting recent trends in the number of dosing point sites is difficult due to a lack of available data for South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland.

For more information see NOPSAD collection: State and territory data quality.

What was the relationship between opioid pharmacotherapy clients and dosing point sites?

On a snapshot day in 2025, half of clients (52% or 30,059 clients) received pharmacotherapy treatment at a pharmacy (Table S13). This was the most common dosing point site for all pharmacotherapy drug types except for buprenorphine LAI. Among clients receiving:

• Methadone, 2 in 3 (67% or 15,377 clients) dosed at pharmacies and almost 1 in 14 dosed at either private clinics (6.9% or 1,595) or public clinics (8.1% or 1,867).
• Buprenorphine, around 1 in 2 (51% or 3,793 clients) dosed at pharmacies and around 1 in 5 (21% or 1,571) dosed at public clinics.
• Buprenorphine-naloxone, nearly 2 in 3 (64% or 5,704 clients) dosed at pharmacies.
• Buprenorphine LAI, 1 in 3 (33% or 6,031 clients) dosed at correctional facilities and around 3 in 10 dosed at pharmacies (28% or 5,185) (Figure DOSING 1; Table S13). 

Client characteristics by dosing point site type

Age of clients

Consistent with previous years, pharmacies continued to treat an older client group than other dosing point site types, while correctional facilities treated a younger client group:

• Pharmacies were around 6 times more likely than correctional facilities to dose clients aged 50 and over. Around half of clients (51% or 7,586 clients) who dosed at pharmacies were aged 50 and over, compared with 1 in 12 clients (8.2% or 295) for correctional facilities.
• Clients in their 40s and over accounted for around 2 in 3 clients (67% or 4,212 clients) for public clinics and 3 in 4 (75% or 528 clients) for private clinics.
• Clients in their 30s and 40s accounted for more than 3 in 5 clients (63% or 425 clients) dosed at hospitals.
• Almost 2 in 3 clients (65% or 2,335) who dosed at correctional facilities were aged in their 30s and under, compared with around 1 in 6 clients (17% or 2,500 clients) for pharmacies (Table S29).

Sex of clients

On a snapshot day in 2025, all dosing point site types from the selected states and territories treated more males than females. This is consistent with the overall proportion of males and females receiving pharmacotherapy treatment:

• The proportion of clients who were male ranged from 64% (9,443 clients) for pharmacies to 94% (3,363) for correctional facilities. 
• Female clients were more likely than males to dose at pharmacies (54% of female clients, compared with 40% of male clients). 
• Male clients were 6.5 times more likely than female clients to dose in correctional facilities (14% of male clients, compared with 2.2% of female clients) (Table S30). 

Prescriber type

Based on these data, 4 in 9 clients (44%) received pharmacotherapy at pharmacies. Across all dosing point site types from selected states and territories, the most common prescriber type was private prescriber (41% of clients).

• Almost 1 in 4 clients (24%) received pharmacotherapy at pharmacies from private prescribers.
• A further 3 in 10 clients received pharmacotherapy treatment from public prescribers at a public clinic (17%) or a pharmacy (12%) (Table S31).

Number of clients per dosing point site

On a snapshot day in 2025, in selected states and territories, dosing point sites dosed an average of 18 clients each. There was a wide variation of pharmacotherapy dosing point site types, reflecting the need of varied dosing point types to service the needs of people in community, health and judicial systems.  The number of clients per dosing point site varied by site type (Figure DOSING 2). On average nationally (for selected states and territories):

• Public clinics (New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, ACT, and Northern Territory only) had the highest number of clients per dosing point site (55 clients per site), excluding correctional facilities. 
• Pharmacies dosed 12 clients per site. 
• Correctional facilities dosed an average of 199 clients per site. However, this number is inflated as New South Wales reports all correctional dosing point sites as operating under a ‘single’ site rather than counting individual correctional dosing point sites. This significantly increases the number of clients per site. On the snapshot day in 2025, New South Wales recorded only 1 site with clients receiving treatment (Table S23). 

On a snapshot day in 2025, almost 3 in 4 (74% or 2,402) dosing point sites treated between 1 and 20 clients:

• 42% treated 1–5 clients.
• 19% treated 6–10 clients.
• 14% treated 11–20 clients (Table S20).

Of the dosing point sites treating more than 50 clients (6% of all dosing point sites), most were located in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland (Table S20). The Australian Capital Territory had the highest ratio of clients per dosing point site (27 clients per site), while the Northern Territory had the lowest (8.5 clients) (Figure DOSING 3; Table S21).

What was the geographic location of dosing point sites?

On a snapshot day in 2025, across jurisdictions with available data:

• More than 3 in 5 of all dosing point sites were located in Major cities (63% or 1,622 sites). 
• 1 in 4 (24% or 615) sites were located in Inner regional areas.
• 1 in 10 (10% or 257) sites were located in Outer regional areas.

Dosing point location data for Queensland’s 683 dosing point sites were not available.

Since 2014, rates of dosing point sites in state and territory remoteness areas have generally increased or remained stable. Larger increases have occurred mainly in more regional areas (For example, Outer regional, Remote and Very remote areas) (Table S18). However, these rates do not indicate the number of clients receiving opioid pharmacotherapy treatment at each dosing point site in these areas. This information is not currently collected by the NOPSAD collection.

Figure DOSING 4: Map to explore pharmacotherapy dosing point sites, by Statistical Area Level 2, 2025