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- Repeat prescription policy change 2026
The introduction of the "New Zealand ePrescription Service" (NZePS) has potential privacy and oversight issues when it was hurried through during COVID-19 lock-downs to reduce the need for "Face-to-face" consultations, but this has now been continued to sustain the telemedicine industry whereby increasingly non-"Face-to-face" consultations are being funded at the expense of the proven superiority in outcomes occuring in the personal contact care of your own GP.
As such, we opted to avoid all but necessary telemedicine and refrain from using the NZePS.
The Medical Council of New Zealand has reviewed email prescribing and ruled that emailing prescriptions "are permitted only where the prescriber requires a medicine to be dispensed urgently." Furthermore, the original prescription has to be forwarded to the dispensing pharmacist within 7 days (or 2 days if a controlled drug).Because of this, and the increasing medico-legal risk, we now require all repeat prescriptions to be collected (and paid for) at the surgery to be taken to the pharmacist of the patient's choice. Prescriptions will be available the following afternoon of the request (if deemed appropriate), while "urgent" prescriptions needing emailing will attract a higher fee.
Please note that repeat prescriptions are only offered for stable situations that have had a review and after I have confirmed they remain appropriate without a face-to-face review, so they are not available after a new medication is started or changed, especially if the prescription and/or change was not made by me. They are not available again without a face-to-face full consultation (ie not "tacked on" to another separate problem).
- Does the "Manage My Health" data breach affect my notes?
There is no way your private information stored in our practice system can be affected by the Manage My Health data breach because:- We have not signed up to Manage My Health as it was inherently dangerous for privacy, as confirmed by the data breach, and counterintuitively for continuity of care.
- Your GP notes are only stored in two forms:
- A hand-written hard "draft copy" (later deleted) then;
- as the official electronic notes which are stored on the practice server hard drive and backed up on to two external hard drives (one off site).
- As such, your notes are NOT "in the cloud", so not available on-line.
- Hacking the Server (in-person or on-line) would require cracking two separate complex passwords.
- Increased prescribing lengths (up to 12 months):
It has been announced that early in 2026, some medicines may be available from one prescription for up to 12 months. Please do not expect this to be the norm or apply to you as it is based on a political decision to change a legal requirement, when it should be a medical decision and it will NOT extend the dispensing amounts and dispensing timing at your pharmacy, so it is not reducing pharmacy supervision, just undervaluing the General Practitioner supervision, producing a reduction in patient care.
Furthermore, this move further reduces General Practice viability and wipes out any increased income PHO-based practices were expecting. For our non-capitated practice, it would force a large increase in fees to avoid closure.
See how this could affect you and this practice - 2022-25 Practice Policy:
See Up to date practice policies - The value of General Practrice:
See Summary-of-Evidence - GP viability and fees:
See GP viability and fees - Earlier notices and submissions:
See table on the right ➤
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