Within the effective steps taking by the Ministry of Health (MOH) towards improving the quality of health care and improving public-private partnership, and the continuing need to gain more experience in the public-private partnership, the Ministry of Health, represented by the Health Investment & Financing  Alternatives Department (HIFA) in collaboration with the UK Embassy in Muscat and KPMG organized  today (Sunday) a Training Workshop on Public-Private Partnership in Healthcare at Sheraton Hotel.

The workshop, which held under the patronage of H.E. Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Saidi, Minister of Health targeted the decision-makers and senior officials  in the Ministry of Health, such as directors-general, hospital executives, members of the Investment Committee, members of the health insurance committee, financial managers and administrators in the health governorates of the Ministry of Health, in order to implement various models of public-private partnership and propose a common framework for some health care projects.
This training is a proposal to build the capacity of government officials on the issue of public-private partnership by the international experts, international companies and accredited speakers from the UK.
Dr. Halima Bint Qalam Al-Hinai, HIFA Director, stressed that the partnership between the public and private sectors will reduce the pressure on the government to build hospitals and provide the government's health sector with qualified expertise and advanced technology, which will directly affect healthcare and quality due to the variety of competencies in the private sector. However, this partnership requires the government sector to be flexible enough to adapt to the private sector that is developing day by day and to continuously train its medical staff as well as buy and provide modern technology.
Dr. Halima said that this workshop aimed to raise awareness about best practices and lessons learned from all the regional and international public and private partnership projects, as well as to improve the participants' efficiency with respect to the principles of public-private partnership in order to implement the partnership and its economic feasibility for the institutions.
The workshop also presented a study of some cases on best practices of public-private partnership at the global and regional levels, as well as experiences of the UK and global expertise in the field of partnership in health care.
The workshop adopted the application and practical training in addition to the theory where the participants were distributed to equal training working groups under the supervision of international and local experts in the field of partnership. During the training, the participants have given tasks on how to identify the projects suitable for implementation in the assets of the Ministry of Health, (therapeutic and support) services that could be subject to the public-private partnership, and those projects were classified as high, medium or low depending on their readiness. The outputs of the practical training side of the participants were then evaluated by the experts and international trainers involved in the implementation of the workshop.
It is worth mentioning that the Ministry of Health continuously seeking to develop and improve the level of public-private partnership in the field of health care by developing, training and refinement of the skills and expertise of its employees through the implementing similar training workshops and meetings with regional and international expertise to ensure full compliance with the highest standards of quality and efficiency.