13 March 2025
Chris Johnston
[FYI request #30072 email] Tēnā koe Chris
Your request for official information, reference: HNZ00079210
Thank you for your email on 12 February 2025, asking Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora for the
following under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
This is a follow up to a previous OIA - HNZ00041853 . Please note that there are changes
in the language in this OIA compared to HNZ00041853 in order to help HealthNZ to better
assist us. For the following request can you please extract from the relevant Health NZ
database(s) the data “as is” in a machine readable csv format. I note that:
- In HNZ00041853 the data was provided in a pdf which was not what was requested
(“machine readable csv format”), and this made it unnecessarily harder for the public and
professionals to use.
- All of this data may be found in a data warehouse database, or could be collated from
multiple databases with simple DBA or reporting analyst actions that are not “substantial
collation and research” under 18(f) of the legislation. We wil be pursuing this via the
Ombudsman if this OIA is circumscribed for this reason so that a reasonableness check of
any HealthNZ judgement call can be undertaken.This OIA is to assess the quality and
completeness of the data being recorded so that the public and suitable analysts can make
an independent assessment and extract any useful information.
Therefore there is no need for the data entry to be 100% complete or correct, nor for Health
NZ staff to be diverted from other operational tasks to make any amendments. The dataset
just needs to be extracted in the way that has been requested below by a DBA with
knowledge of the relevant databases.
Please note the Ombudsman’s OIA guidance that collation is an acceptable request and
that data quality is not a reason to refuse.
COLUMNS OF DATASET 1
S0: Source Country – eg USA, Spain
S1: Manufacturer Name – e.g. Pfizer
S2: Product Name and Version/Code – eg there may be a nomenclature regarding initial
doses and subsequent booster doses. This may be easier to extract as separate fields.
S3: Manufacturer Batch Number – as provided by the Manufacturer
S4: Number of Doses supplied – by the Manufacturer in that Batch
S5: Date of First Supply – the Minimum Date recorded for when a batch was received by
Health NZ
S6: Date of Last Supply – the Maximum Date recorded for when a batch was received by
Health NZ
D1: Pay Per Dose (PPD) Batch Number – the internal ID used within the Health NZ PPD
system (which could for example be available within another database this OIA information
is sourced/reported from)
D2: Sending Site – eg Name of the Pharmacy or Vax Centre
Sending Site Type – eg Pharmacy
D3: Number of Doses Recorded as Dispatched – as recorded in the relevant database at
the time the query is run (without correction or alteration)
D4: Date of First Dispatch – the Minimum Date recorded for when a batch was dispatched
to a Sending Site
D5: Date of Last Dispatch – the Maximum Date recorded for when a batch was dispatched
to a Sending Site
NOTES ON DATA ITEMS
N1: Columns marked S1 to S6 should be repeated where they relate to a dispatch from that
supplied batch.
N2: S5 and S6 are less important and can be excluded if they are not available in the
dataset or database selected for answering this OIA.
N3: Null or zero entries may occur and Health NZ should provide a general explanation (not
row by row in the dataset) of the reasons why these occur – eg data entry issues so some
batch numbers are incorrect.
N4: Totals may not align – this is OK if it represents the source data and reasonable care
has been taken to extract.
N5: No quantification is required for the reasons above
N6: Please provide a description of the columns provided with details of any coding
scheme/rules used to generate DATASET 1 or DATASET 2
N7: Where a supplied batch is dispatched multiple times to a Sending Site across multiple
months then these records in the database would be grouped into one line.
N8: Where there is no Dispatch record to the Sending Site – the record of the
administration of the dose to a person can be used as a proxy for the dispatch record – with
the date of administration used instead of the date of dispatch.
N9: For the avoidance of doubt, incorrect Batch IDs or other items are OK. This is an audit
of the Health NZ data quality and an exercise in statistically extracting information of use for
the public and professionals using techniques that have a high degree of fault tolerance.
EXAMPLE
For a Pfizer batch of 100 doses that was received all on 1/4/2021 split and sent to a
Pharmacy (30) and a GP Practice (50) with 20 doses wasted during April 2021 the 2 lines
in the csv file might look something like.
“USA”,“Pfizer”, “Vax1234”, “BatchABCD”, 100, 01/04/2021, 01/04/2021, 11,
“Pharmacy1234”, “Pharmacy”, 30, 15/04/2021,15/04/2021
“USA”,”Pfizer”, “Vax1234”, “BatchABCD”, 100, 01/04/2021, 01/04/2021, 11, “GP4567”,
“GP”, 50, 11/04/2021,26/04/2021
POSSIBLE EXCEPTION CONDITION – UNHANDLED MANY TO MANY RELATIONSHIP
N10: Where a dispatch contains items from many supplied batches the database should
have separate records and this will be able to be split across two or more records for each
supplied batch. If this many to many relationship is not handled in the database (that is end-
to-end track-and-trace cannot be undertaken by Health NZ) then a) exclude these
dispatches from the DATASET 1 above and b) please also provide a second dataset
DATASET 2 with these dispatches and only include the following Columns:
DATASET 2
D1: Pay Per Dose (PPD) Batch Number – the internal ID used within the Health NZ PPD
system (which could for example be available within another database this OIA information
is sourced/reported from)
D2: Sending Site – eg Name of the Pharmacy or Vax Centre
Sending Site Type – eg Pharmacy
D3: Number of Doses Recorded as Dispatched – as recorded in the relevant database at
the time the query is run (without correction or alteration)
D4: Date of First Dispatch – the Minimum Date recorded for when a batch was dispatched
to a Sending Site
D5: Date of Last Dispatch – the Maximum Date recorded for when a batch was dispatched
to a Sending Site
S0: Source Country – eg USA, Spain
S1: Manufacturer Name – e.g. Pfizer
S2: Product Name and Version/Code – eg there may be a nomenclature regarding initial
doses and subsequent booster doses. This may be easier to extract as separate fields.
S3: Manufacturer Batch Number – as provided by the Manufacturer
S4: Number of Doses supplied – by the Manufacturer in that Batch
S5: Date of First Supply – the Minimum Date recorded for when a batch was received by
Health NZ
S6: Date of Last Supply – the Maximum Date recorded for when a batch was received by
Health NZ
N11: Where the affected dispatches are listed and duplicated across rows that identify the
possible Manufacturer supplied batches that they could have come from. My suggestion is
that the possible supplied batches for affected dispatched doses can be narrowed by a
DBA using date ranges.
N12: Please name and state whether you have returned DATASET 1, DATASET 2 or both.
REASONABLENESS OF REQUEST
This request removes the need for any cleaning or completing of the data by Health NZ and
will only require the services of a DBA/analyst to aggregate and group data that has been
collected during the normal course of Health NZ’s business.
This OIA does not require Health NZ to make any judgement about “fit for purpose” as this
is an audit of what actually has been recorded in the database, and the judgement of what
is useful will be able to be made by the receivers of the OIA’s dataset.
The Ombudsman’s guidance is that data quality is not a reason to refuse an OIA, and
collation of data from a database is an acceptable request.
This OIA has been simplified so no commentary is required by HealthNZ – just the
data. Therefore unreasonable disruption of the everyday function of the teams involved is
able to be tested as it will boil down to whether HealthNZ provides enough competent
analysts to answer OIA requests from datasets that are suitably structured to enable even
the core functions of Health NZ to manage operations/logistics, monitor safety and be able
to undertake resolution actions at pace. These are core competencies.
No patient privacy issues are involved so there is no need to suppress counts less than a
certain number.
No commercial issues are relevant as this OIA deals purely with dispatch not the number of
doses administered – and there may be many reasons for payment to differ substantially
from dispatch.
In order to establish data integrity and auditability (eg for wastage or quality control
between supply and dispatch and other scenarios of interest), it is necessary to track by the
relevant IDs supplied by the manufacturer and the PPD system maintained by the Health
NZ.
This type of dataset request Health NZ has successfully fulfilled for past OIAs.
We have previously established that I am a NZ citizen, resident and taxpayer and entitled to
make this OIA request.
Response
Please find attached the output from your original request (HNZ00041853 refers) as a CSV file as
requested. We do apologise that the incorrect file format was supplied to you on that occasion.
In order to answer your further questions relating to that data, Health NZ would need to divert
personnel from their core duties and allocate extra time to complete this task. The diversion of
these resources would impair our ability to carry out other core functions. As such, your request is
refused under section 18(f) of the Act, as it requires substantial collation.
I have considered whether fixing a charge for the supply of the information or extending the
timeframe for response would enable Health NZ to respond. I do not consider that either option
would remove the impact that supplying the information would have on our other operations.
How to get in touch
If you have any questions, you can contact us at
[email address].If you are not happy
with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the Ombudsman. Information about
how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by phoning 0800 802 602.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, Health NZ may proactively
release a copy of this response on our website. All requester data, including your name and
contact details, will be removed prior to release.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Sara Freitag
Manager, Machinery of Government Support
National Public Health Services
TeWhatuOra.govt.nz
Health NZ, PO Box 793,
Wellington 6140, New Zealand
