The Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand (the Guild) has successfully secured improvements to the next Integrated Community Pharmacy Services Agreement (ICPSA) voluntary variation by working outside the limited scope of the national annual agreement review (NAAR).
This work involved the Guild holding regular meetings with the Health Assurance Unit (set up to provide advice to the Minister of Health), the Crown Observer on the Health New Zealand (HNZ) Board, and the Acting Director Planning, Funding and Outcomes at HNZ.
While the 3% cost pressures uplift for community pharmacy remains unchanged, our repeated questioning of the ICPSA expenditure baseline used by HNZ resulted in cost pressures funding increasing by $2.8 million.
Our advocacy work over the last three months has also resulted in a significant programme of work to better position community pharmacy for the future.
This work was acknowledged by HNZ when introduced to other NAAR participants on 4 August, and by the Minister of Health at the Pharmacy Sector Leaders Forum on 7 August.
“While 3% does not adequately recognise the cost pressures faced by community pharmacy, and we continue to highlight this, it’s important to ensure we achieve as much as we possibly can for members each year”, says Guild Chief Executive Andrew Gaudin.
Key successes delivered by the Guild include:
- Additional $2.8m in cost pressure funding secured
- $5m annual fund for nationally consistent pharmacy services
- $5m fund able to be used for staff training and IT costs to expand services
- Commitment to develop a sustainable funding model in 2026/27
- Urgent review to mitigate financial impacts of 12-month prescriptions by October
- Nationwide contracting policy with conditions for awarding new ICPSA’s
“These are the right commitments to take the sector forward, and we will work to ensure they are delivered on. This is not the end of the road – but it’s progress. We’ll keep pushing for the support our sector urgently needs,” says Mr Gaudin.