National promises to restore prescription fees for most, put savings towards cancer treatments

National is promising to put $280 million towards cancer treatments, by restricting fee-free prescriptions to superannuitants and those on low incomes.

The money would be ringfenced for 13 different cancer treatments under Pharmac, and be paid out in $70m instalments over four years.

Party leader Christopher Luxon and Health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti announced the policy at Southern Cross Hospital in Auckland on Monday afternoon.

"Despite the hard work and dedication of New Zealand's trusted healthcare professionals, cancer survival rates here lag behind Australia, partially due to Australia's broader funding of cancer medicines," Luxon said.

"The cancer treatments will be available to all patients with clinical need, as assessed by their doctors."

"We are interested in lifting the cancer bar," added Reti. "Clinicians have told us they don't have the tools that they want or need to do that. Clinicians have told us that 1500 New Zealanders die a year for similar conditions where they might otherwise survive in Australia - we want to address that treatment gap."

The treatments include:

• osimertinib for lung cancer, first- and second-line therapies
• atezolizumab with bevacizumab for liver cancer
• cetuximab or panitumumab for bowel cancer, first- and second-line therapies
• nivolumab with ipilimumab for kidney cancer, first- and second-line therapies; for head and neck cancer
• axitinib for kidney cancer - second-line therapy
• pembrolizumab for bladder cancer
• nivolumab or pembrolizumab for melanoma (adjuvant)
• dabrafenib with trametinib for melanoma (adjuvant)
• BRAF/MEK inhibitors for melanoma (unresectable).

Luxon said the allocation was a better use of taxpayers' money than Labour's universal approach to removing $5 prescription fees for everyone.

"Under National, superannuitants and those on low incomes will receive free prescriptions. For everyone else, the total amount any family will pay for prescriptions in a year will be capped at $100."

The treatments had been identified by New Zealand's Cancer Control Agency as providing significant clinical benefits, and they were funded in Australia but not New Zealand, he said.

"New Zealanders suffering from these cancers who have exhausted available treatments here in New Zealand currently face a really bleak choice - that choice either is to give up, or it's head overseas, or mortgage their home or try and raise a significant amount of money from friends and family to fund the treatment themselves.

"We want all cancer patients here in New Zealand to be armed with hope and positivity as they go through this battle against this terrible disease - not helplessness, not frustration and not desperation. National wants these New Zealanders to stay in New Zealand and to fight their cancer with the full support of a world-class health system.

"Every minute counts in the battle against cancer, and we want Kiwis to have access to better treatments here at home to give more of them the chance to beat cancer and get back to their normal lives."

Luxon said around 1000 New Zealanders a year would benefit from switching funding from universal free prescriptions to the 13 cancer drugs.

"It's National's view that there are so many health needs going unmet that an untargeted subsidy like that is going to people who frankly don't need it - people like myself or Chris Hipkins. It frankly isn't the best use of scarce health dollars."

Free prescriptions would still be available to those with a Community Services Card or a SuperGold Card, he said, while non-qualifying families would have fees capped at $100 a year.

Asked why seniors - who already get taxpayer-funded pensions regardless of their wealth or income - would still get free prescriptions, Luxon said it was the "cleanest way" to reach those who need them.

"It's a commitment that we've made, understanding that they will have health needs. We're doing everything through the lens of health needs… common sense, rather than politics."

He denied interfering in the independence of Pharmac's ability to choose what medicines to fund, saying the 13 treatments with ringfenced funding were identified by the Cancer Control Agency (out of 20 - five of which have since been funded, and two others ruled out, Luxon said).

None of the 13 treatments were for non-solid cancers like leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. Reti said this was because the Cancer Control Agency was yet to determine "treatment gaps" between New Zealand and Australia for those diseases.

"That's specifically why I said to those cohort of people, we haven't forgotten you."