Health Funding

The National Annual Agreement Review meeting planned for tomorrow has been postponed until 24 June because Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora does not yet know how much money it will allocate to pharmacy funding

The lack of additional investment in New Zealand’s medicines budget, especially the failure to announce the funding of 13 cancer-drug treatments promised before the election is extremely disappointing

Budget 2024: Aside from a glaring hole where new funding for Pacific providers should be, there are no surprises in the Vote Health section of the 2024 Budget, says public health academic Sir Collin Tukuitonga

Budget 2024: Health economist Paula Lorgelly says many Kiwis who were expecting more funding for new cancer drugs and for Pharmac will be sadly disappointed by Budget 2024, which she sees as underwhelming. 

The return of the $5 prescription fee for most people is the main change for New Zealand’s health system in Budget 2024

Plans to boost health funding have been signalled by finance minister Nicola Willis in a pre-Budget speech this morning 

Former deputy prime minister Paula Bennett has been appointed Pharmac’s new board chair, as the Government pledged to boost the agency’s funding by around $400 million a year over the next four years

A long-serving health official says the increase in bureaucracy at Te Whatu Ora is “out of control”, despite the rest of the public service facing drastic cutbacks

Associate health minister David Seymour says the Coalition Government is committed to ensuring Pharmac’s budget “remains and is sustained”

Budget 2024 will provide less than $3.5 billion for new spending on health, education and law and order