9. Question No. 9—HealthHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 9—Health9. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: What proportion of the increased funding for medicines announced at the launch of the interim cancer action plan will be used to purchase cancer drugs?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Funding for medicines is just one element of the Government's comprehensive approach to cancer care and control. As a result of the extra funding announced on 1 September Pharmac has begun consultation on three new cancer medicines for breast cancer ovarian cancer and leukaemia. It has also issued a request for proposal for a further advanced breast cancer drug either Ibrance or Kadcyla. As the member knows Pharmac operates independently and decides which drugs are publicly funded based on expert advice from clinicians. As a result at this time it is not possible to say precisely what portion of the $60 million of extra funding will go into cancer medicines.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he stand by his statement on 2 September in respect of that funding We heard yesterday from Steve Maharey that some of the money will go into contraceptives."?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Some of the money is going into long-acting contraceptives from the additional moneys we've put forward we're told and also some of the money is going into the meningococcal vaccine. Sixty thousand New Zealanders will benefit from medicines that are being funded including of course those who will benefit from the additional cancer medicines that are being funded out of that extra money. Four out of the six I'll note so far of the drugs proposed to be funded are cancer drugs and Steve Maharey also said that there would be more drugs yet to come out of that money that's been put aside—more drugs for more New Zealanders.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Why did he announce funding for Pharmac on the day of the launch of the interim cancer plan if the funding was not to be committed to the funding of cancer medicines?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: We had been advised under the "no surprises" policy that some of the money that we would spend would go to cancer medicines. That was great news because we've certainly heard New Zealanders seeking to have more cancer medicines funded. Pharmac said they had some that were available to be funded. Indeed before we made that announcement in the weeks prior Pharmac announced more cancer medicines would be funded out of money we'd put aside in the Budget earlier in the year. It is the case that the Pharmac model gets better value than other models around the world and means that constantly new drugs are being funded when Governments put new money in.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Will he concede that the public may have had an expectation that the announcement coinciding with the launch of the cancer plan on funding was for cancer drugs not contraceptives and that that announcement may have been misleading to some?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No I think most New Zealanders are pretty smart. They do understand that the Pharmac model ensures that Pharmac and expert clinicians make the decisions about which drugs get funded when new money is put in. I think people understand that.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Would he agree that if the extra funding is spent in proportion to the current cancer drug spend the new funding on cancer drugs will be just $4.4 million this year and how far will that go in funding the plethora of currently unfunded cancer medicines?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: What I do know is that those decisions are made at arm's length and that each funding decision made by the funding agency has different ingredients to it. The only year I'm aware of where cancer medicine funding actually went down was in 2014 when the then Government put no money at all into Pharmac whatsoever. It's the only time in history that I can find when the funding for cancer medicines went down—it was 2014 when they put no money into Pharmac. We're addressing years of neglect in the health system; this is one more incidence. But in our cancer action plan we've looked at prevention we've looked at screening we've looked at treatment palliative care. We have a comprehensive cancer action plan recognising that our health system has been neglected and it's lacked leadership for a long time. We're making a difference and we're very proud of that."