23 February 2026
Erika Whittome
[FYI request #33253 email]
Tēnā koe Erika
Your request for official information, reference: HNZ00106061
Thank you for your request for information to Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) on
14 December 2025, seeking the following under the Official Information Act 1982 (the OIA):
1. Please share the minutes of the meeting, correspondence, memos etc regarding the
decision of HealthSource to send this above letter to pharmacies.
2. Please share the risk assessment HealthSource undertook on pharmacies that was used to
mitigate the risk of the covid-19 disease with the specific control measure of vaccination.
3. Please share how many businesses were unable to comply with this order by 12 November
2021.
4. Please share the number of business that did not comply with the the COVID-19 Public
Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021 and which had their contracts impacted.
5. Please share the details of how contracts were impacted for non-compliance
Response
HealthSource was disestablished on 1 July 2022, with Health NZ inheriting core policy and
financial records that were archived from the COVID19 period. As a result, records such as internal
meeting minutes, correspondence, or risk assessments related to the vaccination mandate or
records relating to individual provider compliance or contractual outcomes are unable to be
retrieved.
The risk assessment underpinning the vaccination mandate for the health sector was not
undertaken by HealthSource. This work was led nationally by the Ministry of Health and the
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet at the time.
We extended the timeframe for responding to your request in good faith, to undertake further
searches in an attempt to fulfil parts of your request, including targeted enquiries with 11
individuals and multiple teams in 6 different business units. Despite these efforts, as information
related to HealthSource is not held centrally at a national level, Health NZ would need to undertake
further searches, divert personnel from their other core duties and allocate extra time to complete
this task. The diversion of these resources would impair our ability to carry out our other core
functions and may not turn up any results. As such, your request is refused under the following
sections of the OIA:
• Section 18(g), as the information is not held
• Section 18(f) of the OIA, as it requires substantial collation and research.
We have provided links to the following publicly available information that may also be of interest:
•
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/2022-11/h2022013610_response.pdf
•
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/2022-09/h202203767_20210940.pdf
•
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/2022-09/h202206648_response.pdf
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. Al requester data, including your name and
contact details, wil be removed prior to release.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Danielle Coe
Manager (OIAs) – Government Services
Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora
