Pharmac’s Letter Of Expectations Meets The Expectations Of Patient Advocates

Today, the Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac), Hon. David Seymour, will release his letter of expectations regarding Pharmac. The letter details 21 action points the Minister expects the Board Chair, Hon. Paula Bennett, to deliver on this year and next.

States Chair of Patient Voice Aotearoa, Malcolm Mulholland, “This year’s letter of expectations has been met with approval from patient advocates. The agenda of this government is clearly to reform Pharmac. Areas of reform include changing the culture of the agency, working collaboratively with stakeholders, changing the model Pharmac uses to fund medicines to include factoring in wider government and social costs, investigating separating the dual roles of assessment and procurement that Pharmac currently performs, and reporting what steps it is making to address the recommendations made in the Pharmac Review of 2022.

“Patient advocates are very pleased to see in the letter, the need to update the statutory objectives of Pharmac so that it can assist in the optimisation of health outcomes. This is welcome news. Within the Pae Ora legislation is already a reference to resource constraints (this includes budget) for all sectors of the public health system. Because it has been referenced again, and only in relation to Pharmac, cost containment has become the sole focus of Pharmac, rather than health outcomes for patients. This has been the major concern of patient advocates since the inception of Pharmac, 31 years ago.

“Patient advocates welcome working alongside the government and Pharmac to usher in a new era where our drug procurement agency can be vastly improved for the benefit of patients. The letter of expectations signals that era is beginning.

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