Newstalk ZB
People could soon be able to “click and collect” their prescription medicines like they do with groceries. Associate Health Minister Casey Costello plans to introduce legislation to allow pharmacies to have e-lockers for people to pick up prescriptions, including after hours. Medicines can currently only be picked up in-person at a pharmacy, picked by a person “reasonably acting” on a patient’s behalf or delivered to a patient by post. A Ministry of Health briefing to Costello in March said e-lockers would be “particularly helpful” for people who have difficulty accessing pharmacies during opening hours. It said access to prescription medicines can be more challenging for disabled people, people in rural areas and poorer people, and is important for older people and those with chronic medical conditions. The briefing suggested the proposal could be introduced sooner than other pharmacy changes, something also suggested in a separate Cabinet paper. A document released to Newstalk ZB under the Official Information Act shows Regulation and Associate Health Minister David Seymour’s office sought urgent advice last year on allowing click and collect. Officials told Seymour e-lockers would allow people to pick up medicines at the most convenient time and start taking medicine more promptly. “Our view is there would be little or no detriment from allowing them because they are a more secure way of ensuring medicines are delivered to the right person than posting those medicines (which is already currently allowed).” Seymour said “click and collect” was a common sense change. “Patients could collect their prescriptions at a time and place that suits them, whether that be outside normal pharmacy hours or in areas with limited access to pharmacies,” Seymour said. The Medical Products Bill is currently being developed and drafted to replace the Medicines Act of 1981. The Ministry for Regulation last year said while the Bill was intended to be introduced and passed in 2026, changes were not intended to come into effect until 2028. The Bill would also remove restrictions on ownership of community pharmacies, meaning pharmacies and the companies that own them would no longer need to be majority-owned by registered pharmacists. “Rather than prescribing specific delivery models in primary legislation - which could inadvertently limit future innovation - the Bill is designed to be flexible, with secondary legislation setting out the range of permitted pharmacy service models,” Costello said. Azaria Howell is a multimedia reporter working from Parliament’s press gallery. She joined NZME in 2022 and became a Newstalk ZB political reporter in late 2024, with a keen interest in public service agency reform and government spending.
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