Better policymaking for universal health coverage (UHC) requires different actors in the health system to have the right capacities to generate and use evidence. Led by HITAP, in Vietnam iDSI has been supporting the Health Strategy and Policy Institute (HSPI), a technical unit under the Ministry of Health, to build capacity for generating policy-relevant health economic evidence. Through 2016 we have supported HSPI to provide advice to Ministry of Health on reviewing its Basic Health Services Package, identifying high-cost interventions that are inappropriate or poor value for money among the 17,000 drugs and services currently reimbursed by Vietnam Social Security (VSS), the implementing agency for Vietnam’s social health insurance scheme.

As this work draws to a close in January 2017, HITAP and Imperial College visited Hanoi to plan the next phase of iDSI activities with HSPI. iDSI is now also engaging with VSS to explore practical ways of issuing a revised benefit package (based on both clinical and cost-effectiveness evidence) as a national healthcare payer, in order to achieve efficient, fair and high quality UHC.

Dr Netnapis Suchonwanich, Adviser, HITAP (former Deputy Secretary General of National Health Security Office) shares the Thai experience of implementing efficient UHC

From 25th – 27th July 2016, a workshop was jointly convened by DHR, Government of India, The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and iDSI partners: Imperial College’s Global Health and Development Group and HITAP, to raise awareness of this initiative to institutionalise HTA in India.

• The first day of the workshop brought policy makers, academics, health practitioners, and public and private health insurance providers together to discuss the initiative and how it can be best implemented to support India’s Universal Health Coverage Agenda. Read the HTA workshop report here.
• Days two and three were run as a participatory workshop exploring the process for topic selection for HTA in India. Participants generated ideas on how topics could be identified and prioritised, how different stakeholders could be involved and the process for final topic selection. Read the topic selection workshop report here.

Dr Suwit spoke about the Thai experience of achieving universal access to affordable quality healthcare, outlining some of the challenges faced by policy makers and offering his own advice and experience of how to ‘move the mountain’ towards sustainable UHC.

A video recording of the lecture is now available to view online.

Now the Global Health and Development Group, Kalipso Chalkidou and her team will continue to lead on iDSI from their new home.

Watch Lord Ara Darzi’s video message welcoming the team to Imperial College and read more about the move here.

For information about the team’s work prior to September 2016 (as NICE International), please see here.