Our role

The NHC’s work will include assessing (non-pharmaceutical) technologies, services, models of care and programmes. The assessment and prioritisation of pharmaceuticals remains the responsibility of PHARMAC.

The Committee’s role is to assist the health and disability sector to direct its expenditure in ways which make it most effective. We aim to assist the sector to continue to improve the health status of New Zealanders within the country’s financial resources.

Our approach

As we build our capacity the NHC will assess and make recommendations on new, and a selection of existing health technologies, which will include systems and models of care. We are also being asked to assist the sector to identify technologies which may have reached the end of their life-cycles and to exit those in a way which is effective to patients, clinicians and the sector alike.

We are required to advise the Minister on cost effectiveness and affordability and we will establish consistent national processes which have five domains for assessment – clinical, societal, ethical, economic and financial – to ensure our advice is balanced and able to be implemented.

By ensuring all aspects of a decision are considered and by having transparent processes and high levels of engagement we intend that both the community and health professionals will be able to build confidence in the Committee’s recommendations to the Minister of Health.

Background

The National Health Committee has a varied history since it was established in March 1992 as the National Advisory Committee on Core Health Services. In August 1992, the Committee's brief was expanded to include advice on priorities for disability support services. The Committee was renamed the National Advisory Committee on Core Health and Disability Support Services and became known as the Core Services Committee.

In January 1996 the Committee's brief was extended again to include advice on public health and public health matters. The Committee became the National Advisory Committee on Health and Disability, and became more commonly known as the National Health Committee.

The National Advisory Committee on Health and Disability (National Health Committee) is now established under Section 13 of the Public Health and Disability Act 2000. It is an independent committee appointed by and reporting directly to the Minister of Health. The Committee executive is accommodated within the Ministry of Health.

In 2009 the Ministerial Review Group (MRG), established by the Government to advise on improving the quality and performance of the publicly funded health service, made a number of recommendations designed to reduce bureaucracy, to improve frontline services, and to improve value in the public health and disability sector.

As a result, Cabinet recognised that the assessment of new and existing health technologies needs to be done by a specialist national body that will help to avoid duplication, capitalise on scarce assessment skills and apply a consistent and authoritative standard of assessment across New Zealand. Accordingly, the NHC was to be refocused and reconfigured as a vehicle for strengthened prioritisation of new and existing technologies and interventions in the health and disability sector.

A new Chair, Mrs Anne Kolbe, was appointed in April 2011 and the Terms of Reference and the new Committee membership were determined in August 2011.

Membership

The new National Health Committee is a six-member committee, chaired by Mrs Anne Kolbe, a paediatric surgeon from Auckland. The other members of the committee are Craig Climo, Ross Laidlaw, Sharon Mariu, Dr Mark O’Carroll and Alex Price.