Information for prescribers

Ensuring continuity of supply

We all have a role to play in keeping medicines available for our community – people on regular medicines should always have enough for 1 to 2 weeks treatment.

We’re asking prescribers to prescribe normally and encourage patients not to stockpile medicines. 

Dispensing changes

To manage stockpiling behaviours, we restricted dispensing 

Read more about the changes to dispensing

Supply issues and discontinuations

We have a number of medicines that are being discontinued or have a section 29 replacement. You may need to talk to your patients about changing medicines, temporarily and permanently. We appreciate that changing medicine can be disruptive and we thank you for your patience. 

Read about medicines with supply issues

Medicines with amended access criteria

We made changes to ensure minimal interruption to access to health care for people and practical access to treatments as needed. We have consulted on when and whether the access criteria should be returned to how they were before the COVID-19 response. 

We are monitoring the current situation with changing alert levels  

Who to contact

If you have any questions, email enquiry@pharmac.govt.nz