David Seymour: Associate Health Minister on his open letter to Pharmac outlining expectations for medicines access

The Associate Health Minister wants patients involved in Pharmac decision making.

David Seymour has outlined his expectations for the drug-buying agency in a letter to Board Chair Paula Bennett.

It notes Pharmac should see itself as a partner with patient advocacy groups and clinicians and work together to bring treatments to those in need.

Seymour says patients often have different views on treatments that Pharmac may have not considered.

"I think it is important to factor in information that sometimes our patients have."

Seymour has also told the agency he believes its commitment to embedding the Treaty of Waitangi isn't appropriate, and is no longer expected.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack Day twelve past five on News Tools. He'd be
the government's released and open leader to FARMAC around expectations
for improved medicine access. The guidelines include funding, prioritization improved
health outcomes with evidence and hard data, alongside halting considerations
of titidity or white tonguey in its decision making. Associate
Minister of Health David Seymour is with this evening, good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey Jack, Hey, what in.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Your letter or of expectation would you say marks the
single biggest difference from farmac's current operations.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's the idea that farmacs should be looking not just
at how to make the most out of a fixed budget,
but how it can make better budgets to the Minister
of Finance and say hey, if we funded more medicines,
we could maybe save you some hospital admissions and some
operations and keep more people working and less people dependent

(00:55):
on a sickness benefit. Because I think often there's an
opportunity for a one win where if we funded more medicine,
we wouldn't actually need to spend money on other things.
A classic example of that is since the government did
fund try Cafter for assistic fibrosis there have been almost
no lung transplants in New Zealand. Now I don't actually
know how much the lung transplant costs, but I would

(01:17):
guess that's one of the most extensive things the healthcare
system does, not to mention one of the most brutal
surgeries that you can have.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Is there any evidence that FARMAC made funding decisions that
prioritized Maori over other people.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
No, there's not. But then again, their operations are a
bit of a black box, and rightfully so because they're
supposed to be answering from politicians and confidential. What is
important is that if embedding the Treaty and Everything means
treat every person the same according to their medical need,
then they're all could in that's car pay. If it

(01:54):
means treat different New Zealand, it's differently based on whether
or not they had an ancestor who was Marin. We
want nothing to do with it either way. There is
no need for FARMAC to continue with the previous government's
directive of betting the Treaty and Everything it does.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
You say that it's your expectation. FARMAC listens and engages
with patient groups, and those groups are often at the
heart of really emotional public campaigns to have certain drugs
or medicines funded. Isn't the whole purpose of FARMAC to
take emotion out of the equation.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
It's to some extent that is true. However, it's also
the case that sometimes what people want is important. Sometimes
they can give feedback on how a particular treatment or
device works that FARMAC might not have considered. For example,
there's recently been a major exercise to fund continuous glucose

(02:50):
monitors and insulin pumps. FARMAC recommended a change to the
palms and a whole lot of patients were consulted and said, actually,
for technical reason to do with my particular body, that's
going to be a big problem for me. Now, I
think it is important to affector and information that sometimes
only patients.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
He thanks your Tom, We appreciate it. Associate Health Minister
David Seymour. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen
live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.