10. JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) Link to this
to the Associate Minister of Health
What reaction has he received to Medicines New Zealand, the National Medicines Strategy he released in December last year?
Hon PETER DUNNE (Associate Minister of Health) Link to this
Medicines New Zealand, which was an outcome of the confidence and supply agreement between the Government and United Future, has largely been positively received by stakeholders in the sector, including the pharmacy sector, the Access to Medicines Coalition, the New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders, Pharmac, and district health boards. There is a general view across the medicines sector that there has been a need for an overarching strategy to guide medicines policy in New Zealand for some time, and Medicines New Zealand provides that opportunity.
Let me give the member some by no means exhaustive examples. Already the Ministry of Health has begun a review of the Pharmacology and Therapeutics Advisory Committee’s—that is, PTAC’s—appointment protocol and of the operational guidelines, to ensure that Pharmac gets the best advice to inform its decisions. Work has begun on developing a national procurement process for vaccines, and work is also well advanced on what is needed to enhance both electronic prescribing and other prescribing initiatives.
Why did the Minister consider it necessary to develop a National Medicines Strategy for New Zealand?
New Zealand is amongst a number of countries in the world that are grappling with quite complex issues about the future approach to the provision of medicines adequate to meet the needs of the population. For example, determining the right level of investment in medicines compared with other health services is the subject of ongoing debate in a number of countries. There are no simple answers, but we felt it was necessary to develop a policy approach in New Zealand, in order to try to give us a framework for working through those questions and building a medicines system that is responsive to the needs of New Zealanders and works in their best interests. This strategy, which will be ongoing, achieves those objectives.