Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department facilitates knowledge-sharing between the NHS and health minsters in developing countries.

DFID funds health partnerships with developing countries to share NHS expertise. These partnerships engage with ministries of health at all levels to share learning, on nurse training and clinical audits for example.

As my Hon Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Primary Care at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) outlined in his response to you in PQ 158190, the UK government liaises with health ministers through international forums including the G20, World Health Assembly and UN High Level Meetings, sharing our lessons from the NHS to promote progress towards achieving universal health coverage. Several DFID country programmes include NHS partnerships in response to ministry demand, such as Ghana and Zambia. DFID also supports the DHSC’s high level engagement on global health security and antimicrobial resistance, patient safety and mental health with developing countries, including the upcoming first Global Ministerial Summit on Mental Health.