News
Health funding will be tied to quality of hospitals, Centre tells states
Summary
The Centre has made the National Health Mission’s funding for states and Union territories conditional on their government facilities having the necessary quality certification.
New Delhi: The Centre has made the National Health Mission’s (NHM's) funding for states and Union territories conditional on their government facilities getting the necessary quality certification.
The Union health ministry had highlighted and pushed for prioritizing National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS) certification at the regional conferences it convened last year at Shillong, Srinagar, and Vijayawada, among other places.
Only 22,787 out of 175,000 health facilities which include district hospitals, community health centres, and primary health centres had National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS) certificates till 31 December last year.
These quality standards are mandatory for district hospitals (DHs), community health centres (CHCs), primary health centres (PHCs), urban PHC (UPHCs) and Ayushman Arogya Mandir (AAMs). The plan is to also bring private hospitals under the NQAS fold.
A Lancet report published in 2018, said some 1.6 million people die every year are due to poor quality of health care in India. The country can save 3 out of 5 lives by providing quality health care.
50% NQAS certification by 2025, 100% compliance by 2026
To ensure quality healthcare services at the government-run facilities, the health ministry has set a target to certify 50% of public health facilities by 2025 and 100% by the end of 2026.
“For private hospitals, we have National Accreditation Board for Hospitals (NABH) in place. Right now, the government is very serious about NQAS certification for government healthcare facilities. So, we have started with them extensively. Infact, many private hospitals have also started approching us to implement NQAS for them. Later on, the government may consider to expand NQAS for private hospitals too. But, currently, our focus is on government medical institutions," said the official familar with the matter.
The NQAS is in existence since 2015. However, the pace of certification has been slow, with only 10 districts hospitals certified in the first few years. It picked up momentum in the last two years.
Subsequently, NQAS standards were extended to other government health facilities.
Virtual Assessment, no compromise on quality
To fastrack the process of verification, the government has now started virtual assessment for certification of these centres.
“There is an external assessors team of 3 people which goes to the states/UTs, stay there was three days and certifies the hospitals. This entire process used to be very cumbersome and time consuming. So, now, we have started virtual assessment. Same process, no compromise on the quality.
The accessors talk to the community, CHOs, take feedback, verify documents, their eligiblity etc. The virtual quality certification does not intend to replace the existing certification process. Rather, it complements and support the ongoing efforts of the government in achieving the target," the official said, adding that there will be random physical check on 10% of the facilities.
The second rider is the state governments have to do a physical assessment before the national assessment.
Regular reminders, NHM fund release subject to progress made
In the last one year, the union health ministry has issued multiple reminders to the states/UTs in every quarter directing them to accelerate the process after conducting a trend analysis of the NQAS certification and progress made in this direction.
“Quality healthcare is most important for the government and therefore, a conditionality provision has been included. The NQAS quality certification component has been added as one of the criteria for NHM funding along with other key deliverables," the official said.
Quality give confidence to the patient
"The push for accreditation in government healthcare institutions is a positive step, but achieving the target of accrediting 50% of hospitals needs to be prioritized and accelerated," said Dr Alexander Thomas, a leading public health expert from Association of National Board Accredited Institutions.
"As quality improves, it is widely recognized that more patients will choose government hospitals for their healthcare needs."
Queries sent to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered.
The union government , on 1 February, allocated ₹37,226.92 crore to National Health Mission (NHM) for FY26. The goal of the mission is to improve the availability of and access to quality health care.
