Hutchison Paul: Medicines Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hutchison Paul: Medicines Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:605. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 It is indeed a pleasure to speak on this Medicines Amendment Bill and I want to start by congratulating the Hon Peter Dunne on his persistence and hard work in making sure that the bill is indeed on the floor of the House today.  
I also want to acknowledge the Hon Tony Ryall for ensuring that there is an increase in productivity efficiency and effectiveness in New Zealand health services today because over those dark long 9 years clearly productivity in the health services became static or went down. This was backed up by both Treasury and New Zealand Institute of Economic Research papers that showed static or declining levels of productivity and that is surely of great concern when the health budget went from $6 billion in 1999 to $12 billion in 2008.  
National is certainly committed to delivering high-quality health services to New Zealanders. Because of that we are highly cognisant of how important it is to get productivity into the health services. This Medicines Amendment Bill is all about doing exactly that: getting streamlined processes in place and literally delivering better sooner more convenient health services to New Zealand.  
Andrew Little 
: It’s taken you 6 years to get here. Why has it taken so long? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: It is important to just put into the minds of the Labour Opposition—and Mr Little sitting over there—that health services right around the world are characterised by almost infinite demand but finite resources. Mr Little it is hugely important that we do not go back to those static old days of having no productivity under a Labour Government but that we continue to fly with a National Government that is certainly achieving an incredible amount in 3 to 4 short years. For instance this afternoon during question time the Minister of Health pointed out the amazing achievements in the health targets. Immunisation only 4 years ago had about 70 percent completion rates for 2-year-olds. It is now a stunning 92 percent and in places like Porirua it is 94 percent which is a great achievement.  
The Medicines Amendment Bill amends some specific provisions of the Medicines Act 1981. It also amends the prescribing framework for nurse practitioners and optometrists and creates this new delegated prescriber category. There is a great deal of interest in this because it will allow pharmacists within the scope of practice to eventually have the opportunity to prescribe. There will be restrictions around it. They will not be allowed to own pharmacies and they will have had to go through a very arduous course. But there is no doubt that many pharmacists carry a knowledge of pharmaceuticals way beyond that of generalists because of the fact that they are dealing with them day and night and are very familiar with the sorts of side reactions and other quirks that everyday practical people bring to them from time to time. So I think this will be quite a large leap forward.  
The bill also fulfils the Government’s commitment to making more new medicines available in New Zealand. Certainly it was interesting to hear the Hon Maryan Street somewhat shrilly say that this could have happened some years ago but it did not happen some years ago. That Labour Government had the opportunity to get the numbers but it failed. It failed to do so. So it is tremendous that we are now under a National Government going to have this bill through and that it is going to be supported by the Labour Opposition which is excellent.  
One of the things that is so important is to realise that over the next two or three decades health requirements in New Zealand will probably double but we are not going to be able to double the number of hospitals or the number of health practitioners. That is why it is so important to have new innovative ways of doing things; new innovative ways of prescribing; and new innovative ways of using health professionals.  
Certainly the nurse practitioners have shown this. I was lucky enough to attend the diabetes pilot study at Palmerston North Hospital about 18 months ago and it was quite inspiring to see those nurses who had an incredibly detailed knowledge of the drugs involved in diabetes. They had huge enthusiasm and contact with their patients and the results of that pilot were really quite extraordinary and a great credit to the nurses involved with that pilot project. It will be great to see it being expanded across New Zealand. This is a great bill and I look forward very much to going over the details of it in the Health Committee.