133 Molesworth Street
PO Box 5013
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
T+64 4 496 2000

6 July 2022

JS

By email:  [FYI request #19460 email]
Ref:
H202206897

Tēnā koe JS

Response to your request for official information

Thank you for your requests under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) to the Ministry of
Health (the Ministry) received on 25 May 2022. You asked:

Are you please able to provide data on the number of pharmacies in New Zealand,
month-by-month from January 2019 to May 2022.
Including if possible the number of closures and opening of new pharmacies in this time.
This data should be held by the Ministry of Health as the licensing agent for pharmacies
in Aotearoa.

Information that has been identified within scope of this part of your request is attached as
Document 1 to this response. This information is being released to you in full.

Table 1 shows the number of active licences to operate pharmacy monthly between January
2019 to May 2022. Table 2 shows the number of new pharmacy licences and the number of
closures by month.

Please note for the closures, the data provided reflects information reported to Medsafe, and
the closure of the Pharmacy may be temporary or permanent. This is why the numbers may not
match when tracked against the number of active licences by month.

On the same day you also requested for a:

Summary of correspondence between the Pharmacy Guild of NZ and the Ministry of
Health between 1 January 2022 and 1 May 2022.

On 30 May 2022, you were contacted and asked to refine this part of your request. The Ministry
received a response from you on 4 July 2022:

* Are you after all emails sent to the Pharmacy Guild, including ones that the Pharmacy
Guild may have been CC'ed in, or just emails sent directly to them? Direct emails are fine,

I don't want this to be overly onerous for you!
* specifying a topic of emails you are requesting, and we may be able to provide you with
information. No topic – but I am only requesting subject line information so do not need the
specific subjects within at this stage!

Unfortunately, your refined request stil  involves a large volume of information. As you can
appreciate, the Pharmacy Guild engages with multiple teams across the Ministry and Health
New Zealand on a range of subject matters. In order to respond to this part of your request
would require manually reviewing hundreds of correspondence.

I have considered whether charging or extending the time to compile the information
would enable us to respond, unfortunately, I do not believe it is in the public interest to
do so. The Ministry remains open to responding to a manageable request in the future.
Under section 28(3) of the Act, you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review any
decisions made under this request. The Ombudsman may be contacted by email at:
[email address] or by calling 0800 802 602.

Please note that this response, with your personal details removed, may be published on the
Ministry website at: www.health.govt.nz/about-ministry/information-releases/responses-official-
information-act-requests.

Nāku noa, nā

Jan Torres
Acting Manager, OIA Services
Government and Executive Services

Document One

Table One

Date
Number of active licences to
operate pharmacy
31/01/2019
1,091
28/02/2019
1,092
31/03/2019
1,092
30/04/2019
1,092
31/05/2019
1,095
30/06/2019
1,093
31/07/2019
1,097
31/08/2019
1,098
30/09/2019
1,103
31/10/2019
1,105
30/11/2019
1,106
31/12/2019
1,107
31/01/2020
1,109
29/02/2020
1,105
31/03/2020
1,102
30/04/2020
1,106
31/05/2020
1,102
30/06/2020
1,104
31/07/2020
1,105
31/08/2020
1,104
30/09/2020
1,106
31/10/2020
1,104
30/11/2020
1,109
31/12/2020
1,107
31/01/2021
1,106
28/02/2021
1,109
31/03/2021
1,114
30/04/2021
1,117
31/05/2021
1,119
30/06/2021
1,122
31/07/2021
1,120
31/08/2021
1,118
30/09/2021
1,117
31/10/2021
1,114
30/11/2021
1,116
31/12/2021
1,116
31/01/2022
1,115
28/02/2022
1,112
31/03/2022
1,110
30/04/2022
1,113
31/05/2022
1,115

Document One
Table Two

Number of Pharmacies notified to
Month
Number of new pharmacy
premises licensed
Medsafe as
closed*
January 2019
0
[Data not available prior to
March 2020]
February 2019
3
March 2019
4
April 2019
2
May 2019
5
June 2019
1
July 2019
5
August 2019
2
September 2019
5
October 2019
6
November 2019
3
December 2019
1
January 2020
2
February 2020
1
March 2020
4
6
April 2020
4
2
May 2020
0
4
June 2020
3
1
July 2020
2
2
August 2020
2
4
September 2020
4
1
October 2020
3
4
November 2020
5
0
December 2020
3
4
January 2021
1
2
February 2021
3
0
March 2021
6
1
April 2021
4
2
May 2021
5
2
June 2021
5
3
July 2021
1
3
August 2021
2
6
September 2021
1
4
October 2021
2
6
November 2021
4
1
December 2021
5
4
January 2022
3
7
February 2022
0
5
March 2022
0
2
April 2022
3
2
May 2022
4
0

*Note. This reflects information provided to Medsafe, and the closure of the Pharmacy
may be temporary or permanent.

Document Outline