The high rate of prescribing for probable gender dysphoria in New Zealand, and the decline after 2021, require further investigation.

Equity is given less attention than efficiency in HEE guidelines. This indicates that HTA agencies while subscribing to an extra-welfarist approach have a narrow evaluative space – focusing on maximising health and not considering the opportunity cost of the equity constraint.

New Zealand's coalition government has announced an expansion in funding for cancer treatments, enabling Pharmac (Wellington, New Zealand), the country's drug-buying agency, to introduce 26 new cancer treatments as a part of the 54 new medicines package.

Jeffreys et al. People who faced a cost barrier were 34% (hazard ratio 1.34; 95% CI 1.29-1.39) more likely to be admitted to hospital than those who did not. Read...

The aim of this study was to explore participants’ previous experiences with paying for medicines, and the impact of receiving free medicines through the Free Meds study

Dew et al. We argue that for most people with long-term cancer survival wrangling is a social practice, but the capacity to succeed in that practice is dependent on a range of factors, including levels of economic, cultural, and social capital. Read...

Consistent with existing literature, we find that the level of frailty is significantly associated with the cost of healthcare. However, we find no association between drug burden and nonpharmaceutical/overall healthcare costs.

Four intermediate health service outcomes were identified: development of extended community pharmacist services; consumers using extended community pharmacist services; more integrated, collaborative primary health care services; and a fit-for-purpose community pharmacy workforce.

Pharmac is often criticised for not funding enough new medicines and for being too slow to determine which ones it will fund. However, being slow and focused is not proof of being too slow or too focused.

Eliminating a small co-payment appears to have had a substantial effect on patients’ risk of being hospitalised.