Doctors and pharmacists are at odds over a plan to force Australians to see a doctor for common painkillers that contain codeine.

Doctors said the move was a sensible approach to reduce the number of Australians addicted to the narcotic, which is found in low doses in popular painkillers such as Nurofen Plus or Panadeine Extra.

But pharmacists said the plan, recommended by the nation’s medicines regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration, would clog up GP clinics and increase health costs, without effectively identifying addicts.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia said the move would inconvenience the vast majority of Australians whose use of codeine-containing drugs available over the counter was responsible.

This week the TGA made an interim recommendation to make such drugs prescription-only to combat rising addiction rates and other serious health risks associated with the opioid.

A final decision will be made in November, with a view to moving to prescriptions by 1 June, 2016 at the earliest.

The pharmacy guild accepted the need for action on codeine addiction, but said there were better ways to do so.

Before the TGA makes its final decision, the guild will demonstrate software that could give pharmacies real-time access to customers’ drug purchase histories.

It said the system was the most effective way to identify and offer help to addicts who go to numerous pharmacies to obtain large quantities of such drugs.

“There’s no real-time monitoring when you go and see your doctor,” the guild’s national president, George Tambassis, said.

“We don’t see this blunt instrument being the solution.”

The Australian Medical Association accepts the plan will result in additional health system costs and higher workloads for GPs.

But AMA vice-president Stephen Parnis said that should be weighed up against the cost of harm inflicted by the misuse of codeine, intentional or otherwise.

“We are the only country really, in the developed world, where codeine has been available without a prescription,” he said.

“We also know that the number of people suffering avoidable harm in this area has been increasing over time, to the point where, at least in Victoria, the number of deaths from overdose of prescription narcotics is higher than the road toll.”

Parnis said codeine also posed a hidden danger.

“The body converts it to morphine and in fact a proportion of the population can convert it so quickly that they can suffer serious harm as a result.”