‘Interim’ Report But Permanent Change Needed

Last week the interim report into Pharmac was released by the Pharmac Review Panel. Patient Voice Aotearoa welcomed this interim report.

During the leaders’ debate, prior to the last election, Prime Minister Ardern promised an investigation into Pharmac stating “If it gives people faith in our system, then yes” and went on to formally acknowledge that this review was about “making a good system better”.

The Panel found a number of alarming deficiencies with the Pharmac model. They included: underperforming in helping to remove inequitable health outcomes, its prioritisation approach disadvantaging Māori, Pacific people, disabled people, and those with rare disorders, an excessive focus on containing costs, decision-making being opaque and slow, engagement with consumers and patient advocacy groups being non-meaningful, and a perception that New Zealand is falling behind other developed countries.

Of extreme concern to the panel was the uncooperative behaviour exhibited by Pharmac towards the Review Panel. One of several statements made by the Panel stated, “The lack of information from Pharmac has made it difficult to assess the extent to which Pharmac tries to anticipate trends and scenarios that might affect future investment decisions.”

Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) would like answers to the following questions from the Government:

1. Will the Government remind the Senior Leadership Team and Board of Pharmac that they are responsible to the Minister of Health and that they are to cooperate with the Pharmac Review Panel, a panel they appointed, regarding information they require to complete their investigation?

2. If the Senior Leadership Team and the Board of Pharmac fail to cooperate fully with the Pharmac Review Panel, what action will the Minister of Health take?

3. Does the Prime Minister stand behind her statement where she labelled Pharmac as ‘world leading’ and why?

4. In light of the fact that budget was excluded from the Pharmac Review, what work is underway to determine an appropriate budget for Pharmac when the model is reformed?

5. Will the Government immediately boost Pharmac’s budget by $450m to clear the agency’s ‘wish list’ of medicines?

PVA believes that Pharmac’s $300 million Covid Medicines Fund is an example of how well the Pharmac model can work when properly funded. It is also an example of how quickly the government can move to ‘intervene’ when there is an immediate threat to life. “There is an immediate threat to life sitting on Pharmac’s waitlist right now and these New Zealanders with cancer, chronic conditions and rare disorders are being made to wait, whilst fast tracking medicines for covid, some of which are so new, they have not even been named” says Fiona Tolich.

“It is time for our Government to answer some serious questions about Pharmac’s future and budget, it owes our truly most vulnerable that much at least” states Tolich.

PVA would like to also remind the Government that many of the concerns outlined in the interim report are long-standing and have been raised with previous Ministers of Health, Health Select Committees, Members of Parliament, with the CEO of Pharmac, Sarah Fitt, and the Board of Pharmac. PVA is, and always has been, willing to engage with any one of these people or entities to reform Pharmac to truly be the envy of the world.

Claims made by Pharmac that they are already implementing some of the recommendations made by the Panel need to be analysed by the Review Panel in the next stage of their investigations. For many of the patients PVA represents, such claims made by Pharmac appear to be window dressing in the face of the Review Panel and simply a case of “too little, too late”.

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