Public stewardship of private healthcare key to achieving universal health coverage

Health systems the world over are in transition and investment in the public and private sector is crucial to support the changes required to meet the health needs of populations, according to a new Lancet Series published this month.

Social, epidemiological, demographic and economic changes are placing changing and growing demands on health systems which are not able to respond with the speed and agility required to meet population needs.

The research, which draws on nearly a decade of analysis, comes at a critical time as countries around the world wrestle with the rising prominence of the private sector in healthcare delivery and the common patterns of failure in many areas of private provision.

Professor Barbara McPake, Director of the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, and co-editor of the series, said that it was vital to ensure that policy makers have a clear and shared understanding of the private sector as a starting point for investment decisions.

“Universal health coverage means fair and equitable access to services according to need and not according to resources or power.”

Professor McPake says that “this is as achievable...