Project News

A side meeting titled "Stronger collaboration with private sector for better UHC" (SE019) has been held at the PMAC 2020 on 29th January 2020 at Centara Grand at Central World Hotel under the cooperation among the National Health Security Office (NHSO) of Thailand, Ministry of Public Health of Thailand, and the Project (GLO+UHC).

In 2002, Thailand started its Universal Health Coverage scheme and has successfully sustained the system for two decades so far. However, as similar to many nations, Thailand is currently finding ways to effectively engage private healthcare providers into the UHC system in order to ensure accessibility, efficiency and quality of health services for all of its population.

With participation of the distinguished representatives of various income group from Kenya, Laos, Japan, Thailand, the moderator from WHO SEARO (South East Asia Regional Office) and the panelist from WHO Thailand office, this SE019 side meeting has provided a great opportunity with participants and relevant development partners to share and learn current challenges and prospective strategies for engaging private sector in UHC.

Four informative country presentations were conducted to be followed by an animated panel discussion based on four topics: Human Resource migration from public to private institutions including part-time private practices, Data integration between public and private sector, Co-purchasing of pharmaceuticals and other health commodities, and Implication of private "premium" services by public providers – whether it is contributing to public sector as cross-subsidy or rather subsidizing affluent private patients by utilizing public resources. The floor was open to a Q&A session at the end to allow participation from the audiences to address further issues, helping bringing rounded discussion to the gathering and also nurturing networking at national, regional and global level for accelerating UHC process.

• Leaflet "Stronger Collaboration with the Private Sector for Better UHC" (PDF/1.75MB)