Gearing towards the establishment of the Philippine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Health (DOH), the British Embassy Manila, and the United Kingdom’s National Health Service Consortium for Global Health (NHSC) – represented by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) – on October 18-19, 2022 met and discussed collaborative efforts on the development of policies, programs, standards, guidelines, and monitoring and evaluation systems on the forecasting, prevention, and control of diseases, injuries, and disabilities of national and international concern. This is the first of the multiple learning exchanges in collaboration with the UK and the NHS consortium in 2022, focusing on health systems strengthening and health policy development.
During his first State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. revived the call for the creation of a Center for Disease Control and a Virology Institute in the country. Towards this, the DOH is working with several national and international partners, to facilitate the development of better strategies for improved evidence-based policy-making once the measure is enacted into law.
According to UK Ambassador Laure Beaufils, strengthening the health systems is an important part of the UK’s work in the Philippines. The collaboration between the DOH and NHS Consortium for Global Health, and in particular with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) supports the Philippines’ priorities in health policy development.
Since 2012, NICE has been collaborating and sharing technical resources with the Department of Health on methods and process guidelines for Health Technology Assessment development. Through the UK’s Better Health Programme in the Philippines from 2019 to 2022, the NHS Consortium for Global Health has enabled further system-to-system collaboration with NICE to support health systems and health policy development, broadening UK-Philippines collaboration in Health.
(Source: DOH)
