Supporting decision-makers set priorities: en route to Universal Healthcare Coverage

Abstract: Universal Healthcare Coverage is emerging as a key priority post 2015 and the Millennium Development Goals. In this context, national governments and insurance funds as well as global donors are keen to establish scientific and procedurally fair mechanisms for setting priorities for allocating resources.  During the seminar we will discuss the work of NICE International and the newly secured project, funded jointly by The Gates Foundation and the UK's Department for International Development, to scale up efforts to offer technical support to payers around the world, with an emphasis on evidence of comparative clinical and cost effectiveness and due process.  The international Decision Support Initiative is a joint effort led by NICE International, the University of York and a number of other partners from the US and Thailand and, if successful, it may serve as a platform for supporting decision makers build institutional, technical and informational capacity and then apply this to making positive and negative decisions about what will be funded and provided within a Basic Package, and for whom.