The overall design of Ukraine’s health financing reforms is in line with international good practices to improve access, quality and efficiency of health services, according to a joint report of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank on entitled “Ukraine: review of health financing reforms 2016-2019.”
According to the document, the establishment of the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU) as a single purchaser, close-ended prioritized benefits and payment systems provide opportunities to enhance efficiency and accountability to maximize the impact of public funds. This design also allows for the growth of private sector participation in service delivery.
The WHO said that implementation of health financing reforms has successfully moved forward and its continuation can begin to yield tangible benefits for the population in the coming years.
The international experts also said that one key reason for successful implementation of reforms to date has been a strong political commitment and good interagency relationships between the Cabinet of Ministers, Ministry of Health, NHSU and Ministry of Finance. For sustainability, it is important to build distributed ownership for the reforms among key stakeholders including local governments, providers and the population.
