Universal health coverage (UHC) underpins collective commitments for improving health and strengthening health systems in countries. The Region has been making strides towards achieving UHC, but the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on economies risk undermining that progress.
The pandemic has reinforced the importance of investing in health as a government priority, capacity to generate and utilize robust data for evidence-informed decisions, and multidisciplinary and multisectoral ways of working to realize a systems approach to collectively overcoming the pandemic, with UHC playing a central role in joining up all health agendas.
The fifth meeting of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Universal Health Coverage in the Western Pacific Region convened high level policy-makers and government participants from 23 countries and areas, TAG advisers and representatives from all WHO regional offices and HQ virtually to discuss the Region’s UHC journey, given the implications of COVID-19, and how we can capitalize on opportunities to transform the “new normal” to a “new future” with UHC as the foundation. To stimulate new ways of thinking and actions on how to sustain political commitment and health gains during the pandemic, a Ministerial Forum was organised as part of the meeting with Vice Ministers of Health and Finance from Japan, Mongolia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic in attendance. The TAG Alliance reconvened for their second meeting to explore new ways for the TAGs to continue to engage with each other while being catalysts for ensuring UHC as the foundation for “future proofing” our health systems including the commitment to develop practical joint collaborative activities with the view of advancing UHC as a shared endeavour.
Participants of the meeting defined a shared vision of a “new future” with i) people-centred, lifelong engagement and participatory primary healthcare, ii) strengthened public health capacities to sustainably manage COVID-19 and future health security threats and iii) integrated data, disease control programmes and health systems for planning and delivery of health interventions.
To translate collective political and technical commitments to significant actions in countries for UHC, strategic shifts were identified to realize the envisioned health system in the “new future” to advance UHC in countries for transforming health systems, which included:
- Ensuring sustainable financing and collective investment in health outcomes
- Redesigning service delivery models
- Enabling new ways of working to accelerate health systems transformation
- Strengthening intersectoral governance, emphasizing local and community leadership
Objectives:
- To provide Member States an opportunity to share insights and practical strategies to address challenges and harness opportunities from COVID-19 to advance UHC;
- To identify opportunities to transition from the “new normal” to the “new future” for Member States to invest in health with UHC as the foundation; and
- To stimulate new ways of thinking and actions to sustain political momentum for health from COVID-19 recovery to accelerate UHC progress.
The overall outcome of the meeting was for Member States to be stimulated to take actions for building a new future, capitalizing on lessons from COVID-19.