By Cheng Zhaowen & Qiu Yue, China Development Research Foundation

Research Report, No.187, 2020 (Total 5931) 2020-7-21

Abstract: Improving the long-term health care system is a major pursuit of the people in an aging society. The quality and effectiveness of health care services are affected by how properly medical and social services are integrated. Although China’s health care system has seen initial achievements, major challenges still remain such as poor connection of services, mismatch and ineffectiveness of subsidies, and insufficient supply and low quality of service supplies. To cope with the above-mentioned problems, the paper proposes some policy options as follows based on the experience gained by the Department of Health and Social Security of UK, local governments and service providers. First, related government departments in China need to make long-term plans for cultivating primary health care personnel, explore the establishment of consistent coordination mechanisms of services, and ensure connection of services through primary-level information sharing. Second, the government needs to develop national evaluation standards for demands of health care and funding, and give priority to ensuring health care of people with high demands and financial difficulties. Third, efforts are needed to give full play to the role of the market and optimize the structure of service suppliers in a timely manner. Fourth, the government needs to formulate policies to ensure basic living standard of non-governmental caretakers in a bid to enable them to provide relevant services. Fifth, the government needs to establish market supervision departments or institutions on elderly care services, improve related standards and launch dynamic evaluation and supervision.

Keywords: health care system, integration of services, evaluation and supervision