21 District Health Boards
Thursday 7 August
District Health Boards’ response to PHARMAC’s decision to continue 9 week Herceptin treatment
Comments to be attributed to Murray Georgel, Lead CEO PHARMAC Relationship (and CEO, MidCentral District Health Board)
Editors please note there are two pages to this release.
Statement:
District Health Boards (DHBs) acknowledge the distress that breast cancer sufferers and their families face. Our
clinicians and staff do the very best they can to treat women with this illness and in doing so use the information,
advice and resources available to them. One such resource is PHARMAC.
In the absence of advice that provides DHBs with alternative compelling information, we accept PHARMAC’s position that
there is no current basis to support funding for 12 month treatments with Herceptin.
While DHBs continue to hold funding for cancer medicines, DHBs rely on advice from PHARMAC about which cancer medicines
should be funded. This national focus ensures that funded cancer medicines are available nationally, avoiding the risk
of some DHBs funding some things, and others not. There would also be significant additional costs if each and every DHB
had to carry out a funding assessment. PHARMAC makes a recommendation to DHBs when funding is requested, and this advice
is – given PHARMAC’s speciality in assessing medicines – considered very carefully. In this instance, a funding
recommendation was not put to DHBs for consideration.
We believe that this was not a decision taken lightly by PHARMAC. The key reason that PHARMAC noted for not funding 12
months – no certainty of better health outcomes – is one DHBs can understand. In that context, and given the ability of
DHBs to improve health through other interventions, it would have been concerning if PHARMAC had come to DHBs and asked
that the 12 month treatment be funded.
We have every confidence that PHARMAC approached this work with the normal open mind and rigor we expect from it as our
national manager of medicines funding.
This rigor, while sometimes leading to disappointment for some people when decisions are made, ensures that whatever
amount of money is spent on medicines is spent wisely and to maximise health outcomes for all New Zealanders. PHARMAC’s
role is a critical one to our health system, but in the DHB experience its benefits are generally undervalued. PHARMAC
continually improves access to medicines while at the same time saving New Zealand many millions of dollars each year.
For each DHB, there are always many more projects to help improve health than money to go round, whatever the level of
funding. That is a dilemma – how best to spend resources – that most people understand. But people also expect spending
choices to be carefully made and money invested when we have confidence that positive outcomes will be achieved.
DHBS are willing and prepared to revisit this situation. We remain open to receipt of new information and advice about
the relative benefits and costs of 12 month treatments compared with the current fully funded 9 week treatment. We have
every confidence that PHARMAC is open minded and will give any new evidence the careful attention that it deserves.
ENDS