The Guild first became aware of this policy proposal in October 2024, when we provided significant feedback on the impacts for patients, community pharmacies and the broader healthcare system.
Some of the key elements of our initial policy response were:
- Significant adverse financial risks for community pharmacy (estimated $24.6 million revenue reduction per annum, due to fewer initial items, more repeat items dispensed).
- The need for additional funded pharmacy services (i.e. pharmacist-led consultation, monitoring and follow-up) due to reduced general practice oversight.
- Adverse fiscal consequences for government (estimated $8.5 million reduction in pharmaceutical co-payment income per annum).
We also highlighted that many key policy questions remained unaddressed, including would the policy apply at prescriber’s discretion, or only to specific conditions and/or patient groups? Has the government done any impact analysis on this policy? Has there been any consideration to what type of funded pharmacy service would be needed to ensure this proposal would not negatively impact patient safety?
The Budget 2025 announcement to proceed with this policy means these types of impacts and questions now need to be fully addressed by officials in collaboration with the sector. Excellent policy implementation only occurs when officials are fully aware of and on top of all the details.
The Guild established an expectation and understanding last October from the responsible Ministry of Health and HNZ officials that any government decision to progress this policy would result in immediate discussions from both a policy and funder perspective.
At the time of writing this article, the first meeting with officials to progress this is scheduled. Our members should rest assured that we will work to ensure there are no adverse funding impacts for community pharmacy, and we will actively promote the new service model need that exists for community pharmacy.