New Zealand moves to forming national hospital medicines list

New Zealand’s national pharmaceuticals funding agency, PHARMAC, says it has begun a significant step towards standardizing hospital medicines throughout the country. PHARMAC has released two lists of medicines that it proposes every District Health Board hospital would fund.

Once finalized, these lists will form a hospital version of the community Pharmaceutical Schedule, the agency says. The first lists relate mainly to cardiovascular and rheumatology treatments. Medical director Peter Moodie says the ultimate objective of the current process is to give patients, clinicians, hospital pharmacists and DHB management certainty over what medicines are available in all hospitals.

“We want to avoid the situation where medicines are funded in some DHB regions but not in others,” says Dr Moodie, adding: “A standardized national list would ensure people have the same access to the same hospital medicines regardless of where they live. It would also mean a smoother transition of patients from hospital into the community, as it would ensure the medicines that are initiated in hospital will be also funded in the community.”