Comprehensive list of medical devices

What is this consultation about?

Pharmac is drafting a comprehensive list of hospital medical devices currently used by Health New Zealand hospitals. We are consulting to make sure this comprehensive list is accurate and complete.

Having a comprehensive list that is used by all public hospitals will improve transparency and consistency of medical device funding across New Zealand. It is also the next step towards a closed list, where public hospitals will decide what devices are needed to deliver their local services, choosing the most appropriate devices only from the national Hospital Medical Devices List.

The current Hospital Medical Devices List (within the Pharmaceutical Schedule) only contains items that have been contracted by Pharmac. We are proposing to add any remaining medical devices that have been purchased by public hospitals over the last two years, but are not currently contracted by Pharmac, to this list. This will be the comprehensive list of medical devices.

We have used supplier information from the Health System Catalogue (HSC) and spend data from Health NZ's systems to identify any additional devices.

Your input will help us to finalise a comprehensive list that includes medical devices used by public hospitals across New Zealand. Your feedback is essential, as we know not all devices have been identified, so input from you will make sure the list is as accurate as possible and reflects what is in use by Health NZ hospitals now.

This consultation is open from 11 February and closes on 31 March 2025. Following your feedback, the list will be finalised, and all additional medical devices identified will be added to the 1 July 2025 Pharmaceutical Schedule update.

What medical devices are in scope for Pharmac and why they are important

We use the term ‘medical devices’ to cover a range of things that are used by public hospitals or provided by a hospital service for people to use at home.

Medical devices are products, equipment and consumables that are used to diagnose, monitor, treat, modify, prevent or support a health need.

This includes things like clinical diagnostic instruments, implants (such as pacemakers), hospital beds, software, robotic surgery machines, surgical products and more. Items such as bandages, continence support products and rehabilitation equipment are also included.

While there is a wide range of medical devices, they all support the health and well-being of New Zealanders.

Why is having a comprehensive list important? What are the benefits of doing this?

Medical devices are essential to patient care, ensuring the safety of patients and the health workforce, and are essential for public hospitals to deliver their clinical services.

We have built a strong understanding about the complexities of medical devices since the Government asked us to take responsibility for them in 2012. The speed of technology change, the range of people who use medical devices and their different needs are all things we need to take into account when managing medical devices.

Creating this comprehensive list is a significant milestone in our work to improve the way medical devices are managed in New Zealand. This list will provide a clear picture of the medical devices that are currently funded and used in all public hospitals, or provided by a hospital service for people to use in their home.

This list will improve transparency of what devices are used or available for use by public hospitals. It will also allow consistent access across the health system as people will know what is available. Having this list in place will also support future investment planning and good decision-making about what is or needs to be funded to get the best health outcomes for New Zealanders.

Your feedback is essential

The current Hospital Medical Devices List only contains items that have been contracted by Pharmac. As of January 2025, this list had over 170,000 contracted devices from almost 150 suppliers. We estimate that around 70% of the money that public hospitals in New Zealand spend on medical devices is under contracts managed by Pharmac.

We are now proposing to add the remaining medical devices purchased by hospitals to this list. These have been identified as being supplied to hospitals from May 2022–December 2024 but are not currently contracted by Pharmac.

We are aware there are gaps in the list we are consulting on for several reasons, such as suppliers not listing their devices on the HSC or issues matching devices on the HSC to hospital spend data. We need your feedback to make sure the list is as accurate as possible and reflects what is being used. 

Key questions for the additional medical devices proposed list

We have two key questions for people to consider about the ‘additional medical devices proposed [XLSX, 1.9 MB]’ list provided with this consultation:

• Are there any medical devices used by public hospitals that are not on this list?
• Are there items on this list that should not be added to Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List?

How to view the medical devices listed

We understand there is a lot of information to work through, and to help you, we have provided the following:

Overview document 

This provides a summary of the full drafted comprehensive list that includes the medical devices that are currently listed on Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List, as well as additional medical devices proposed to be added:

• This document will be useful to you if you want to check if the medical devices that are important to you are on this list, without going through a detailed Excel spreadsheet.  
• The information is in a searchable PDF format and is sorted by category and includes both the supplier and brand names of the medical devices.

Additional Medical Devices Proposed spreadsheet

This lists the medical devices we are proposing to add to Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List. 

• These have been identified as having sales to Health NZ hospitals from May 2022 to December 2024.
• These medical devices are listed on the HSC but are not currently on Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List
• This Excel spreadsheet list provides a detailed line by line view and can be filtered by ‘Supplier’ or ‘Brand Name’ as entered into the HSC by suppliers or by ‘Category’ as assigned by Pharmac.

Hospital Medical Devices List spreadsheet

This lists the current medical devices already on Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List (on the Pharmaceutical Schedule).

• Use this if you want to see more detailed listing information on what medical devices we have already contracted.

Guidance to help you to provide feedback

To help with your feedback, we have provided additional guidance along with some templates, to assist in collecting your responses. These have been designed to support the feedback requirements of the following groups:

Suppliers – who supply devices to Health NZ hospitals

Health NZ – clinicians, procurement and other technical experts who procure, access support or use medical devices

Consumers and other interested parties – Any member of the public, and anyone who uses, or supports users of devices supplied by hospitals for use in their home.

Suppliers

Here are the steps suppliers should follow to give feedback:

To identify medical devices to be added to the list of additional medical devices proposed

Note: If you do not have your medical devices on the HSC, then they will not be in the Additional Medical Devices Proposed spreadsheet. You can skip to Step 5 to add non-contracted medical devices that you currently sell to public hospitals to the ‘Devices to Add’ tab in the Supplier Response spreadsheet. 

1. Identify medical devices in your portfolio from the Additional Medical Devices Proposed [XLSX, 1.9 MB] spreadsheet:
   • Filter the list by your ‘Supplier’ name to show the additional medical devices we are proposing to add to Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List.
   • Note: This information has been extracted from the HSC. Any changes to this information will need to be done by suppliers directly in the HSC. We will not be accepting any changes to HSC medical device information but will conduct checks against the HSC (using GTIN) before the list is finalised.
2. Review the additional proposed items against those you currently sell to hospitals:
   • Supplier Part Numbers and GTINs are included to facilitate automated checks against any reference lists you hold.
3. Identify any items you sell that are not on the list AND are not already contracted with Pharmac.
4. If there are no items missing and you are comfortable with the list, we ask that you confirm this in writing by emailing us at devices@pharmac.govt.nz
5. In the Supplier Response [XLSX, 108 KB] spreadsheet, provide details in the ‘Devices to Add’ tab of items you want to add to the proposed list of additional medical devices:
   • If suppliers want to add an item and it is listed on the HSC, then only Supplier Part Numbers, GTINs, and 2024 hospital sales data are required.
   • Suppliers must provide hospital sales data for their medical devices to validate their use.
   • To allow us to easily categorise these extra medical devices, please provide a UNSPSC code (commodity / level 4). If you do not have a UNSPSC code for a device, then please provide Category information in the relevant columns.
   • Suppliers that have medical devices already contracted and listed on Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List, do not need to provide details of those products.
6. In the Supplier Response [XLSX, 108 KB] spreadsheet, also provide details in the ‘Large Capital to Add’ tab of any medical equipment you want to add to the proposed list of additional medical devices:
   • Large customisable medical equipment, such as MRI machines, are not in scope for the HSC and therefore will not be on the list of additional medical devices proposed.
   • Suppliers must provide an indication of usage of this equipment in hospitals, either by providing sales or number of devices currently in use.
   • To allow us to easily categorise this equipment, please provide a UNSPSC code (commodity / level 4) or provide Category information in the relevant columns.

To remove items from the list of additional medical devices proposed

1. Identify any items you want to remove from the Additional Medical Devices Proposed [XLSX, 1.9 MB] spreadsheet, e.g. you may no longer supply them now or they are already listed on Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List.
2. Please provide this information in the ‘Devices to Remove’ tab in the Supplier Response [XLSX, 108 KB] spreadsheet, including a reason as to why you do not want this medical device included in the list of additional medical devices proposed.

Note: for any medical devices that you would like to remove / delist from Pharmac’s Hospital Medical Devices List, you will need to follow the usual change request procedure and contact your Contract Manager separately about these. We will not be considering delistings of currently contracted items as part of this consultation. 

For suppliers with existing medical device contracts with Pharmac 

• Business-as-usual activities continue as part of Pharmac’s management of the Hospital Medical Devices List (on the Pharmaceutical schedule). This list is updated monthly, so it may not show recent changes that suppliers or Pharmac have made within the last month.
• Suppliers with current Pharmac contracts must go through the usual change request process with their Pharmac contract manager to make changes to products already listed on the Pharmaceutical Schedule such as delistings, corrections, or price reviews or to add new products to their currently contracted medical device categories. 

For suppliers in an active negotiation process with Pharmac

• Suppliers in active negotiations with Pharmac as a result of an RFP process may not be required to provide the information relating to that activity as part of this process.
• Pharmac will directly advise you if this is applicable to your negotiations. For example, if there is an agreement in consultation. Please complete the information if Pharmac has not advised you it is not required.

Other information for suppliers to note 

• Once the comprehensive list is in place, any new product additions and changes would generally need a contract.
• We will continue to contract with suppliers during and after this consultation as part of our usual contract and category management activities. We will aim to reduce non-contracted items on the list over time as both Health NZ and Pharmac prefer contracted medical devices as they give greater certainty of arrangements.
• Once suppliers have their medical devices listed and under a Pharmac contract, they can liaise with their Pharmac contract manager if they want to update products or terms to an existing category.
• Hospital medical devices are listed on Part III of Section H of the Pharmaceutical Schedule which we refer to as the Hospital Medical Devices List. Each month, we share updated changes to that list with Health NZ and publish the latest information on our website.

Health New Zealand – procurement, clinicians, and other technical experts who procure, access, support or use medical devices

We recognise not everyone will want to review the product level detail or the whole list within the Additional Medical Devices Proposed [XLSX, 1.9 MB] spreadsheet, so to provide confidence the right things are on the lists you may want to:

1. Review the Overview document [PDF, 2.5 MB]. This shows the suppliers and brands under the different categories that we are proposing to be on the comprehensive list.
   • Review category areas that are of interest to you, or search by supplier or brand.
   • Review the brands that are proposed for inclusion on the list.
2. Provide feedback on any suppliers, brands, or medical devices you think are missing from a category, and give a reason why such as, “it’s regularly used”. You can provide these details in the Health NZ Response [XLSX, 111 KB] spreadsheet, within the ‘Devices to Add’ tab of the medical devices you want to add to the proposed list of additional medical devices.
3. Provide feedback on any medical devices or brands proposed for listing that you think are not currently in use and should not be added to the list at this time. You can provide these details in the same Health NZ Response [XLSX, 111 KB] spreadsheet as above, within the ‘Devices to remove’ tab, including a reason as to why you do not want this medical device included in the list of additional medical devices proposed. 

Consumers and other interested people

We are interested in your feedback about whether the comprehensive list covers the range of medical devices you have access to now. This is for medical devices that are funded by Health NZ hospitals. This does not include devices funded by other Government agencies including ACC or charities. 

We have provided an overview document which provides a summary showing the medical devices supplier and brands, if you do not want to go through the more detailed Excel spreadsheet information.

1. Review the Overview document [PDF, 2.5 MB]. This shows all the brands and suppliers under different categories that we are proposing to be on the comprehensive list.
   • Look at category areas that are of interest to you, or search by supplier or brand
   • Review the brands that are proposed for inclusion in the list (these are in bold text).
2. Provide feedback on any medical devices that you have access to now through public hospital funding that you think are missing. You can provide these details in the Consumer Response [XLSX, 99 KB] spreadsheet using the ‘Devices to Add’ tab along the bottom of the spreadsheet, with information about the medical devices you think are missing from this information.
3. Provide feedback on products you see on the list that for some reason you think should not be (please provide reason). You can provide these details in the same Consumer Response [XLSX, 99 KB] spreadsheet as above, using the ‘Devices to remove’ tab, including a reason as to why you do not want this medical device included in the list of additional medical devices proposed.

How to provide feedback

You can send your feedback at any time before the 31 March 2025.

Early feedback is welcome and will help us speed up this process as we aim to review feedback as it comes in.

Email: devices@pharmac.govt.nz anytime before 5.00pm, Monday 31 March 2025 with the information as requested, plus any other feedback. All feedback received by the due date will be considered.

You can also email us any questions or general feedback you may have about this consultation by emailing devices@pharmac.govt.nz

What happens with your feedback?

We will be reviewing your feedback as it comes in to help us to validate the information so that we can then finalise the comprehensive list.

We will then notify you about the finalised list and we are proposing to publish the comprehensive list in the 1 July 2025 Pharmaceutical Schedule update. We will also share a summary of consultation feedback themes with all those who responded and will publish this on our website.