None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Although prescription charges in New Zealand are low compared with many other countries, many people report that they cannot afford the medicines they need. We plan to conduct a randomised controlled trial of prescription charges to see whether removing charges would improve people’s health. We will recruit a group of people who have diabetes and/or ongoing mental health conditions requiring medication, and live in deprived neighbourhoods. We will divide the group in half and pay prescription charges for one group for twelve months. We will then compare how many days people from each group spend in hospital to see whether free prescriptions make a difference. The differences in use of health services, quality of life, and medicines use between the groups will also be investigated.
Interventions
Exemption from standard $5 prescription charges for 12 months from 1 Feb 2020. Participants will be issued with an ID card identifying them as being in the study, and community pharmacists will be given a list of study participants in their geographical area. When participants visit community pharmacies to pick up prescribed medicines they will not be required to pay the standard $5 per item prescription charge. They will still have to pay any other charges for their medicines, such as blister p
Exemption from standard $5 prescription charges for 12 months from 1 Feb 2020. Participants will be issued with an ID card identifying them as being in the study, and community pharmacists will be given a list of study participants in their geographical area. When participants visit community pharmacies to pick up prescribed medicines they will not be required to pay the standard $5 per item prescription charge. They will still have to pay any other charges for their medicines, such as blister packing charges. If participants in the intervention group are asked to pay the $5 charge they will be able to contact the study team via a free phone line.
Sponsors
Professor Pauline Norris
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Living in one of the study areas (the following towns and surrounding areas: Gisborne, Napier, Hastings, Opotiki, Wairoa, Whakatane, Foxton, Otaki, Levin, Timaru and Oamaru); living in an area of high deprivation (NZDep 7-10) or homeless; and either having diabetes (for which they take medication), on-going mental health problems (for which they take antipsychotics), or COPD
Exclusion criteria
People who do not consent will be excluded,
Outcome results
None listed