The National Health Policy (NHP) is a framework set by the Government of India to guide the development and implementation of healthcare services in the country. The latest version, NHP 2017, focuses on providing affordable, accessible, and quality healthcare to all citizens.
Overview
The National Health Policy 2017 continues to build on the progress made by the previous Policy back in 2002. The context of the National Health Policy 2017 has been different from the context in four significant ways. They are as follows:
- Ever Changing Health Priorities: Even with the rapid decline of maternal and child mortality rates, there has been a constant growth in the number of non-communicable and infectious diseases.
- Growth Rate of the Health Care Industry: One significant change is the emergence of a robust health care industry that is estimated to grow in leaps and bounds.
- Catastrophic Expenditure: The growing rate of catastrophic expenditure due to costs for healthcare is another reason. Poverty is said to be a result of these costs.
- Economic Growth: The rise in economic growth enables enhanced fiscal capacity.
Objectives of National Health Policy 2017
- Universal Healthcare Access – Ensure healthcare is available to everyone, especially the poor and vulnerable.
- Preventive and Promotive Healthcare – Focus on preventing diseases through vaccination, awareness programs, and better nutrition.
- Strengthening the Public Health System – Improve government hospitals, clinics, and rural health centers.
- Affordable and Quality Medicines – Promote generic drugs and regulate private healthcare costs.
- Digital Health and Technology – Encourage telemedicine and electronic health records.
- Reduce Out-of-Pocket Expenses – Increase government spending on health and promote health insurance.
- Addressing Lifestyle Diseases – Control non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
Key Principles
- Professionalism, Integrity and Ethics: The National Health Policy commits to offer the highest professional standards, integrity and ethics that can be provided. It aims to maintain the same through the entire system of the health care delivery services everywhere with the support of a credible, transparent and responsible regulatory environment.
- Equity: It is essential to reduce inequity to reach the poorest. This means that disparity based on account of gender, caste, poverty, disability and any other forms of social exclusions and geographical barriers must be removed entirely. This means that higher investments and financial protection for people who are poor and suffer from heavy medical conditions or diseases.
- Affordability: As costs of health care increases, affordability requires the utmost focus, as distinct from equity. Catastrophic household healthcare expenditures defined as health expenditures that exceed 10% of its total monthly consumption expenditures or 40% of its monthly non-food consumption expenditures are unacceptable.
- Universality: Prevention of any exclusions concerning social, economic or on current health status. Here, systems and services are designed to cater to every individual, including special groups.
- Patient-centred and Quality of Care: Gender-sensitive, safe, effective and convenient healthcare services are to be offered with confidentiality and dignity. There is a need to evolve and disseminate health standards and medical guidelines for every level of the facility along with a system to ensure that the quality of the same is not compromised.
- Accountability: This includes financial and performance responsibility along with transparency in decision making and elimination of corruption in healthcare systems in both; public and private.
- Inclusive Partnerships: A multistakeholder approach is required where the partnership and participation of all non-health ministries and communities are achieved. This approach would include collaborations with various academic institutions, non-profit agencies, and the healthcare industry as well.
- Pluralism: Individuals would have access to AYUSH care providers based on the documented and validated local, home and community-based practices. These systems, among others, would also have Government support with respect to research and the supervision to develop. This would enrich their contribution to achieving national health goals and objectives through various integrative practices.
- Decentralisation: Decision-making has to be decentralised to a level that is consistent with practical considerations and institutional capacities. Community participation is to be promoted simultaneously along with health planning processes.
- Adaptiveness and Dynamism: Constantly improvements on the dynamic organisation of healthcare, based on new knowledge and evidence with learning from communities, national and international knowledge partners is designed.
FAQs
Health System Strengthening?
Health finance
- Increase the health expenditures by the Government as a percentage of GDP from the existing 1.15% to 2.5% by 2025.
- Increase the State sector health spending to above 8% of the Budget by 2020.
- Decrease the proportion of households facing catastrophic health expenditures from the current levels by a rate of 25% by 2025.
Health Infrastructure and Human Resource
- Ensure the availability of paramedics and doctors as per the Indian Public Health Standard (IPHS) norms in high priority districts by 2020.
- Increase the number of community health volunteers with respect to the population ratio as per the IPHS norms in high priority districts by 2025.
- Establish primary and secondary care facilities as per the norms in high priority districts by 2025.
Health Management Information
- Ensure district-level digital information database on health system components by 2020.
- Strengthen the health surveillance systems and establish registries for diseases that are of public health importance by 2020.
- Establish the federated integrated health information architecture called the Health Information Exchanges and National Health Information Network by 2025.
Challenges in Implementation?
- Shortage of doctors and nurses in rural areas
- Low government spending on healthcare compared to developed countries
- High dependence on private healthcare leading to expensive treatments
- Slow adoption of digital health systems in rural areas