Executive summary
This is our final response to the report of the independent Pharmac Review, which we have focused around five key themes:
- Enhancing assessment and decision-making
- Striving for and achieving te Tiriti o Waitangi excellence
- Doing more to achieve health equity
- Better involvement of and collaboration with others
- Better integrating our responsibilities.
All these themes are connected and interrelated. Only when fully woven together will they help us achieve better health outcomes for New Zealand.
We have made 30 commitments for 2022/23 across the above themes.
Beyond these specific commitments – for out-years – our final response assures our direction while recognising the importance of being agile in our environment ahead and learning as we go. We will need to adapt to new strategies and plans arising from the health reforms. Flexibility will be key to supporting new collaborative working arrangements to bed in, so they meet the needs of multiple parties.
We are currently developing our Statement of Intent and work programmes to give full effect to our commitments in this Response. More detail on how we will be delivering change will be in our next Statement of Intent, which will be finalised at the end of June 2023.
Pharmac cannot achieve these ambitious goals on our own. We must work closely with our health and disability system partners. We must ensure we hear the voices of those affected by our decisions, Māori, Pacific peoples, disabled people, and other priority populations. Only by reflecting their aspirations in our work, can we truly deliver better health outcomes.
While connecting externally is vital, so is ensuring our own strengths, resources, and capabilities match what we want to achieve. Our work has expanded over the years. We now manage over $2 billion of government funding, overseeing contracts for more than 200,000 hospital medical devices, and 2,000 medicines and related products.
The Pharmac Review has confirmed Pharmac’s strategic direction and will continue to help further enhance our work as we move ahead.
- Final Review response [PDF 9.8 MB]