Timely access, KPIs and reviews – stakeholders seek answers from National Medicines Policy committee

Pharma News: Yesterday’s stakeholder webinar was hosted by the National Medicines Policy (NMP) Review Committee for participants to seek clarification of key points in the NMP draft consultation ahead of taking part in the consultation survey closing on 2 March, after a 2-week extension to the deadline.

The NMP Committee is chaired by Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Michael Kidd AM. Its members include Professor Lloyd Sansom AO, Janette Donovan, Dr Sarah Dineen-Griffin and David Herd.

Many of the NMP submissions discuss the importance of ‘timely access’ to medicines which is reflected in pillar 1 of the NMP draft consultation. The need for significant improvements in the time to access novel medicines was also consistently verbalised during the House of Reps inquiry in 2021. The current NMP draft consultation does not articulate the key performance indictors (KPIs) for measuring timely access.

Dr Dineen-Griffin said “This is something that has been raised throughout the consultation process by many stakeholders. The term timeliness was not defined because it is context specific. By not defining timeliness, but acknowledging it is an element of the first pillar, our draft maintains its high-level policy focus and provides for a flexible and adaptable process to be implemented as appropriate.”

In fact, there are no KPIs in the draft consultation for evaluating any aspect of the NMP.

Professor Kidd said “We had a lot of discussions around whether specific KPIs should be included within the National Medicines Policy or whether this was part of the further work which needs to take place as each new program, initiative or associated policy is developed based on the principles outlined in the new NMP. We felt that KPIs probably go down the next level and not appropriate in this very high level, strategic document.”

Less than 5% of stakeholder submissions reflected on the need to consider the constraints of limited government budgets when making decision on access to medicines. Yet pillar 1 of the draft consultation indicates “…at a cost that individuals and the community can afford”.

David Herd said “We were very clear in the policy that it’s supportability, both at individual and community level, and associated expenditure is captured within budgets across everything that we do that is served by government.”

A number of the submissions to the consultation also identified the need for a dedicated body to be ultimately responsible for upholding the NMP principles and ensuring that the key stakeholders are working collaboratively to follow and utilise the policy. The NMP draft consultation does not define a potential body or framework in relation to this.

Professor Kidd noted “This issue about who has oversight for the policy will be going into our separate recommendations to the Minister and to government. We will deliver the high-level policy document and then the government can consider what happens with actual implementation.”

Stakeholders call for a new NMP which is reviewed regularly and remains fit-for-purpose in reflecting the innovations and changes in the ecosystem. It has taken over 20 years to update the current NMP which is clearly out of alignment with the current environment.

The NMP draft consultation does not indicate how often the new NMP will be reviewed or which drivers will trigger a review process.

Dr Dineen-Griffin commented “We’ve been trying to work to ensure that the policy remains fit-for-purpose as it has done for the last 20 years. I do hope that there are more regular reviews. It is something that certainly needs to be discussed as we move forward with the policy.”