【Authoritative Interview · Studying and Implementing the Spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC】Promoting High-Quality Development of Health and Population — An Interview with Lei Haichao, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the National Health Commission

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "People's health is an important symbol of socialist modernization." The "Proposal of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development", reviewed and adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC, has made arrangements for accelerating the construction of a Healthy China and promoting high-quality population development, fully reflecting the Party Central Committee's high attention to people's health and high-quality population development.

Accelerating the construction of a Healthy China and promoting high-quality population development are crucial to the overall situation of Chinese-style modernization and to promoting common prosperity for all people. How to implement the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC and consolidate the health and population foundation for advancing Chinese-style modernization? Reporters interviewed Lei Haichao, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the National Health Commission.

Adhere to Taking Enhancing People's Health and Well-being as the Fundamental Value Orientation, and Continuously Narrow the Service Gap Between Urban and Rural Areas, Regions and Groups

Reporter: How to accurately position health work in the strategic overall situation of Chinese-style modernization?

Lei Haichao: In the historical process of realizing the "Two Centenary Goals", the development of health undertakings has always been in a fundamental position and played an important supporting role. The 15th Five-Year Plan period is a critical stage for laying a solid foundation and making all-round efforts. We must accurately grasp the current historical stage, combine our own positioning, anchor the strategic goal of building a Healthy China by 2035, focus on the theme of high-quality development, consolidate the foundation of the basic medical and health system with Chinese characteristics and high-quality population development, continuously improve public welfare-oriented medical and health services, improve the population development service system covering the entire population and the whole life cycle, and improve relevant operation guarantee and governance mechanisms. We will consolidate and expand advantages, break through bottlenecks, and make up for weaknesses to ensure that all initiatives are aligned with the overall goals and orientations.

Scientifically understand the situation and actively serve the overall situation. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China's development is in a period of coexisting strategic opportunities and risks and challenges, with increasing uncertain and unpredictable factors. China has a stable economic foundation, many advantages, strong resilience and great potential, and the supporting conditions and basic trends for long-term development have not changed. We must strengthen confidence and determination, unswervingly do our own things well, and respond to the needs of the people and changes in the international environment with high-quality health services, safe guarantee capabilities and efficient governance levels, so as to provide strong support for Chinese-style modernization.

Firmly grasp the essential requirement of common prosperity. Providing fair, accessible, systematic, continuous, high-quality and efficient medical and health services for the people is an important manifestation of common prosperity. We must clearly recognize the political, social and people-oriented nature of health work, adhere to taking enhancing people's health and well-being as the fundamental value orientation, focus on the principal contradiction of unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's new expectations for health, highlight balance, accessibility and continuity, and continuously narrow the service gap between urban and rural areas, regions and groups. We will make greater progress in promoting health equity and accessibility, accelerate the equalization of basic public health and population services, the homogenization of basic medical services, and the balance of professional capacity, and constantly enhance the people's sense of gain, happiness and security.

Promote the Construction of a Health Service Pattern for Chinese-style Modernization and Make Iconic Contributions to Chinese-style Modernization

Reporter: How to promote the key health tasks during the 15th Five-Year Plan period and better safeguard and promote people's health?

Lei Haichao: We must fully implement the arrangements of the Plenary Session, focus on the people's health expectations, strive to write a new chapter in health for Chinese-style modernization, and strive to increase the average life expectancy of Chinese residents to about 80 years old by 2030, making iconic contributions to advancing Chinese-style modernization.

First, highlight strategic guidance and promote the comprehensive transformation of work towards a people-centered health approach. In the process of Chinese-style modernization, prioritizing health development is both a development goal and a development support. We must promote Party committees and governments at all levels to take health prioritization as a priority goal for economic and social development in the next period, improve the policy and legal system for health-prioritized development in terms of planning, investment, governance and performance, and improve the policy and institutional system for health promotion. We will take health indicators such as average life expectancy and high-quality population development indicators as important contents of the performance management of Party committees and governments, fully establish a risk assessment system for health risk factors, and accelerate the formation of a lifestyle, production method and economic and social governance model conducive to health. The health system should fully shift to a people-centered health approach, transforming from focusing on diseases to focusing on health, and from serving patients to serving the entire population. At the individual level, we must manage health-related risk factors, so that issues such as weight, blood pressure, blood lipids and blood sugar that affect physical and mental health can be effectively intervened and controlled, thereby achieving a healthier and higher-quality life.

Second, highlight the balance of development, focus on the grassroots and promote significant progress in hierarchical medical treatment. We must pay attention to the balance of the development of the three-level medical and health service system, optimize the functional positioning and layout of medical institutions, stabilize the operation of secondary hospitals, and implement the Project for Strengthening Grassroots Medical and Health Services. Focusing on the sinking of personnel, technology, services and management to the grassroots, we will vigorously develop assistance and collaboration mechanisms among medical institutions at all levels, promote mobile medical services and telemedicine, and enable the general public to obtain convenient, efficient and high-quality medical and health services near their homes, achieving more obvious results in hierarchical medical treatment. We will accelerate the construction of close-knit county-level medical communities and urban medical consortia, promote distributed inspections in towns or communities, centralized diagnosis in county-level hospitals, and mutual recognition of inspection results. Strengthen the incentive and restrictive role of medical insurance payment on hierarchical medical treatment, guide and standardize medical treatment in different places, and improve the efficiency of medical insurance fund use.

We must pay attention to the balance of the development of service structures in different disciplines. For weak disciplines and specialties that are in demand by the masses but have insufficient service supply, we will comprehensively improve emergency medical rescue, blood supply guarantee and emergency response capabilities, strengthen mental health and psychiatric services, and enhance health services for women, children and the elderly. Combining the ongoing "Year of Pediatric and Mental Health Services" and practical matters for the people, we will make good plans during the 15th Five-Year Plan period to fully make up for weaknesses.

Third, highlight public welfare and fully consolidate the development foundation of public hospitals. Comprehensively promote the experience of medical reform in Sanming in light of local conditions at the prefecture-level city level, adhere to the reform concepts of Party leadership, public welfare, people-centered approach and health orientation; adhere to the reform style of facing difficulties head-on and forging ahead with determination; adhere to the reform rhythm of promoting reform according to local conditions and continuous iteration and upgrading; adhere to the reform method of closely adapting to the local economic and social development level, providing appropriate services and moderate guarantees for the masses, and ensuring sustainability. Guided by public welfare, we will implement the main responsibility of running hospitals, adhere to the correct purpose and direction of running hospitals, and promote the dynamic adjustment of staffing in public hospitals and the reflection of the value of medical services in charges. Strengthen cross-departmental comprehensive supervision over medical service quality and safety, institutional operation, and the behavior of practitioners, and severely crack down on insurance fraud and corruption in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. Focus on promoting the solution of the operation guarantee issues of county-level medical institutions, conduct in-depth research on relevant policies and actively promote their implementation. Provide financial subsidies to medical institutions and weak departments that are needed by society, have low charging levels and face difficulties in balancing revenue and expenditure to promote their stable development, implement the policy of subsidizing policy-based losses, strengthen the operation guarantee of county-level and grassroots medical institutions, and prevent the risk of wage arrears and service interruptions.

Fourth, highlight service continuity and open up the whole-chain health services covering prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and management. With the deepening of aging and the extension of average life expectancy, the people will have a greater demand for all-round and whole-cycle health services. We will take chronic diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes as the entry points, improve the system of early screening, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, develop whole-chain services covering prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and management, and promote the effective connection of the whole process including precise intervention at the prevention end, multi-disciplinary collaboration at the treatment end, continuous services at the rehabilitation end, and long-term follow-up at the management end. We will improve the first consultation responsibility system and the referral mechanism between hospitals and clinics, improve the pertinence and effectiveness of medical treatment, and solve the urgent and anxious problems of the people. Further strengthen the optimization and remodeling of service processes, build consultation and referral platforms within and between hospitals, allow professional institutions and personnel to provide professional opinions, and help patients seek medical treatment in a more scientific, standardized and orderly manner. Give full play to the distinctive advantages of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and management, improve the integrated TCM and Western medicine service system, strengthen mutual learning between TCM and Western medicine, improve the setting of TCM clinical departments in general hospitals, carry out the construction of TCM-Western medicine collaborative "flagship" hospitals and departments, deepen clinical collaboration between TCM and Western medicine in major and intractable diseases, launch the "New Era Shennong Tastes Hundred Herbs" campaign, and enrich TCM treatment methods.

Effectively Reduce the Costs of Childbearing, Rearing and Education for Families, and Actively Promote Healthy Aging

Reporter: How to further improve the fertility support policy system and promote high-quality population development?

Lei Haichao: High-quality population development covers all aspects of childbearing, rearing, education and health, and requires comprehensive policies. In recent years, China has successively introduced a series of fertility-promoting policies and measures, such as extending maternity leave, strengthening pregnancy and childbirth services, and gradually promoting free preschool education. We have established a childcare subsidy system and vigorously developed inclusive childcare services.

In the next step, we will guide young people to establish a positive outlook on marriage and childbearing, give play to the role of childcare subsidies and personal income tax deduction policies, improve the education resource allocation mechanism adapted to population changes, steadily expand the scope of free education, and effectively reduce the costs of childbearing, rearing and education for families. We will further implement the Early Pregnancy Care Action and the Plan for Improving the Capacity of Pregnancy and Birth Defect Prevention and Control, and provide better health guidance in the first trimester of pregnancy. Adhere to the integrated development of nursery and kindergarten, and expand the supply of inclusive nursery places. In the future, we will carry out demonstration pilots of childcare service subsidies, explore further subsidies for childcare service institutions, make efforts from both the supply and demand sides, and improve the inclusive childcare service system.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China's aging will continue to deepen, the demand for medical care for the disabled and cognitively impaired will increase, and the demand for hospice care for terminally ill patients will also rise. We will actively carry out scientific research on major health issues, comprehensively expand the supply of rehabilitation care, hospice care and other services in urban and rural areas, and develop integrated medical and elderly care services. Continuously optimize basic public health service projects, enrich their contents, and improve their quality and efficiency. Continue to improve the quality of family doctor contract services, and improve the connection and linkage mechanism of drug use in counties, townships and villages.

Source: People's Daily