Simeon Brown: Health Minister on 12-month prescriptions being available from next year

More convenience and savings are being offered for those on long-term treatments. 

From February, people will be able to receive 12-month prescriptions. 

Patients will still collect their repeats from the pharmacy but will no longer need to return to their doctor each time for a new script. 

Health Minister Simeon Brown told Mike Hosking this could save patients up to $105 per year in reduced GP fees. 

He says it will also free up appointment space. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To the Health Department, where the law allowing faster approval
of medicines by far makers passed. Also twelve months scripts
will become a thing as of February. The FARMAC law,
by the way, also allows medical conferences to advertise yet
to be approved medicines. That was the weirdest thing ever. Anyway,
Simming and Brown is the Health Minister and with us morning.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
That conference thing, How was that ever a thing?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh, look, it's a very weird piece of legislation. When
we found out about it, we asked the officials whether
that heard of Google and whether or not some doctors
might use Google to actually work out what drugs might
be available in other countries. And of course it made
absolutely no sense that medical conferences were not able to
advertise non approved medicines. And so we've changed the law.

(00:44):
David Seymour and I work together. We've changed the law
and now we've got medical conferences coming to New Zealand
which otherwise would have been in Australia, which is fantastic
for our economy.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
So that's sort of a tourism move, isn't it, Because
conferences didn't come because of that very rule. I mean,
what do you reckon we've missed out on over the years.
It must be tens of millions of dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh, it would be tens of millions of dollars. I
mean two conferences next year, three three hundred people combined
are coming to New Zealand, which is fantastic for Auckland,
fantastic for New Zealand. But if you add that up
over many years, that would be you know, thousands less,
thousands of fewer visitors coming to New Zealand spending money
in hotels and restaurants and accommodation and lo and behold.

(01:24):
It's all because they they weren't able to advertise medicines
which may be approved in other countries. And as I said,
Google is available free of charge to everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
It's nuts the far Maake approval thing. So in other words,
if it's approved in one of our close jurisdictions, we
can do it here. That's another I mean, I'm not
pissing in your pocket to put it bluntly, but I
mean that's another painfully obvious thing, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah? Absolutely, And again, so we're working with David Seymour
and this is part of our coalition agreement to make
sure that we could literally speed up the approval of
these of drugs. So we do it for cars, so
you know, if a car has approved in a different jurisdiction,
we allow that car to be recognized here in New Zealand.
We don't go into a complete safety check all over again.

(02:10):
You know, it's about the same with medicine. So if
it's approved and a comparable jurisdiction or two other comparable jurisdictions,
it can then be approved in the thirty days by
med Safe here in New Zealand. So it's about making
medicines more available to New Zealand as faster, which is
what we want.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
What was their pushback argument? What was it? They were
arguing that we're so special, so unique, so different, they
needed to do their own investigation.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, I think it's part partially that you know, these
laws haven't been looked at for a long period of time,
so they'll put back it. They'll put in place in
a period of time when these approval processes weren't or
the information shearing may not have been as easy. But ultimately,
you know, through COVID, we saw how this really slowed
down approvals for critical medicines you know, we campaigned on

(02:56):
that at the last election part of our coalition agreement.
We've now delivered it.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
The twelve month script. How much of this has always
been about I mean the doctor would argue, well you
and never know you might be growing another leg. But
how much of it's really about the admin fee for
the pharmacist and the script fee for the doctor.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, I think I mean, ultimately this will save patients
up to one hundred and five dollars a year by
doctors being able to make up twelve months prescriptions. It
will still be the doctor's description, so depending on the
condition of the patient. But if you think about long
term conditions such as asthma and other you're managing diabetes,
other things which patients are having to go back every

(03:33):
three months to their GP, that will free up time
with the GP. They're able to then see other patients
during that time. So ultimately it's about putting patients first,
making it easier for them to get the medicines they need,
and ultimately, if they've got more access to medicines, we
keep people healthy in the community and not turning up
to a hospital.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
But how much pushback have your head from the pharmacist
and the doctors who aren't getting them money because they're
not writing scripts anymore.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
I mean, I think there's a variety of views in
both of those sectors in terms of their their view.
I think the reality is that our doctors are in
an enormous amount of pressure and a lot of they're
incredibly busy. We know how long it takes for people
to get appointments, which is a big issue that we're addressing.
But ultimately this will free up the ability for them

(04:18):
to see other patients.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
And so I had Brian Rochan before and I didn't
ask him because it didn't have time. Where are we
at with the industry election.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
So negotiations are ongoing, So there.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Are negotiations, active negotiations. People are around the table.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
There are negotiations underway between the government and the unions
in terms of the senior doctors. That is before I
think the employment courts due to the fact that Health
New Zealander is applied to fix the terms of that agreement.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Okay, nice to talk, appreciate it very much, sum and
Brown Health Minister. Does any of that that you've just heard,
whether you are aware of it or not, just explain
to me. I mean, none of that's going to save
them if they're going to have trouble next year on
the election. Name you're not changing about because of that?
But is that not just good, basic common sense. They've

(05:10):
rectified a problem that really should have been rectified. Does
anyone actually disagree with any of what you just heard?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
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