Medicine access difference
We wanted establishing baseline measures of the difference in access to funded medicines for priority conditions.
Health Quality & Safety Commission
The Health Quality & Safety Commission (HQSC) has done significant work looking at the variation of access to health care in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Atlas of Healthcare Variation | HQSC(external link)
Our insights work focused directly on medicines access.
Methodology
An established external review process is in place to ensure the data used within each report is robust and has credibility with experts in the field before public release. External review of these insights included pharmacoepidemiology, clinical specialist (condition specific), general practitioner, and Māori health.
- Methodology Medicines Access Equity insights 2021 [PDF 1.9 MB]
Our data is taken from the NZ Pharmaceutical Collection. It doesn’t include people who have not been initially prescribed long-term medicines for these conditions. As such, we believe access differences for Māori and Pacific people are likely to be understated.
Pharmaceutical data web tool(external link)
Who to contact
We welcome your feedback on these insights. You can also contact us for information about the methods used and guidance on interpreting the data.
Email: accessequity@pharmac.govt.nz