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

Eight of the twelve persons approached for an interview agreed to be
interviewed (ref. p. 84). The interviewees were all generous with their time and
were pleased to be asked to discuss the subject and were cooperative during
the interviews.
One person withdrew approximately 20% of the interview transcript during the
editing of the transcript and validation process. The recanted material was
discarded. One interviewee asked for the voice data recorder to be switched off
during parts of the interview and gave “off the record” comments. Enlightening
as they were, these comments were not entered into the record of the interview.
I considered that removing this material from the transcript did not detract from
my understanding of the material the interviewee wanted to remove from the
transcript. This was because the comments had been made to me and my
understanding of their meaning cannot be removed by expunging them from a
transcript. These comments were informative and gave a perspective that
helped me better understand the PHARMAC policy, albeit that I could not report
on them.
One past or current Minister of Health preferred that hand written notes be
taken rather than recorded by the digital voice recorder. This request was
agreed to and the transcription from the notes was later validated by the
interviewee. Similarly, one interviewee requested that verbal as opposed to a
written consent be given prior to the interview. This condition was agreed to.
Once the interviews were transcribed, each transcription was entered into
NVivo 8, and coded into nodes and analysed using thematic analysis.
There were four interviews transcribed from past or present PHARMAC
personnel. The following table describes the varying roles of the interviewees
without identifying them.
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