Disclaimer

The Palliative Care Handbook New Zealand – First Edition includes guidance on the prescribing and administration of various medicines. In New Zealand, health practitioners prescribing medication must comply with the relevant law, their own professional obligations, the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights and other applicable standards. Health practitioners are required to act with reasonable care and skill, to inform patients (or a patient's legal representative) about treatment options (including the expected benefits, risks, side effects and costs), and to obtain informed consent before proceeding with any treatment (or otherwise have a legal basis for proceeding with treatment). In places this Handbook refers to the prescription of medicines outside of approved use (e.g. 'off-label' use), and where this is proposed, it is especially important that this is explained to the patient, informed consent is obtained (or there is a legal basis for provision of the medication), and the patient or their representative is made aware that supply of the medicine may be notified to Medsafe.

The guidance in this handbook is provided for the general assistance of health practitioners and has not been tailored to any specific individual or circumstance. While care is taken to ensure its accuracy at the time of printing, the information and practices described within may change over time. This handbook is not a substitute for individualised medical advice, and users of the handbook must always consider current best practice and apply their own clinical judgement to each patient under their care. The prescription of any medicine remains the responsibility of the prescribing health practitioner.

Funding of pharmaceuticals should be confirmed using the Pharmaceutical Schedule online, which at the time of printing is updated monthly and can be accessed here: https://schedule.pharmac.govt.nz/ScheduleOnline.php

Reviewers acknowledge the references to the Palliative Care Formulary (PCF8), New Zealand Formulary (NZF) and Medsafe Datasheets in the Palliative Care Handbook monographs.

For clarity, in the Palliative Care Handbook, all controlled release and modified release are referred to as slow release.