How does the operation of PHARMAC's 'Community Exceptional ...

material and by working through the official information papers which I received.
Several of the names of potential interviewees were uncovered by reading
copies of emails, file notes and scribbling on the sides of released official
documents where the names had been withheld. I did not employ random
sampling because the pool of potential interview candidates was too small to
guarantee effective coverage by sampling very large cohorts of people. Nor did
I use theoretical sampling because I was not searching for a theory that
underpinned the decision making process, I simply wanted to discover, as
truthfully as I could from actors, how the policy was enacted. Nor did I choose to
utilise snowballing as a sampling technique because this would have signalled
to interviewees who was being interviewed. Snowballing would have also
opened the possibility of contacts coaching and influencing one another, even in
tacit ways. It was important to ensure that interviewees remained anonymous to
other interviewees.
The difficulties of obtaining primary interview data from PHARMAC officials are
discussed in the following section on key informant interviews. My interviewees
were all sampled by their roles within PHARMAC, past or present. Ministers of
Health who had considerable experience of the policy and patient advocate
groups who had experience of the decision making process. I made direct
personal contact by phone, email or letter and in the main this worked well as a
sampling method.
The text of the data relating to the key informants was written in a way that a
knowledgeable person would not be able to identify the source of comments
made. I utilised the description ‘past or present’ when describing an interviewee.
For example, I refer to a past or present PHARMAC executive member or a
past or present Minister of Health. The eight interviewees are referred to in the
Research Findings (Chapter 6) as Interviewee A,B,C,D,E,F,G and H.
The AUTEC addressed the issue of possible psychological distress to
interviewees. The Committee identified the possibility of interviewees becoming
upset at recalling unpleasant experiences or memories. This risk was
discussed in the information sheet which was sent to interviewees. The
information sheet is provided in Appendix 2. If any participant required
counselling as a result of stress related to recall of events or experiences which
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