The General Office of the State Council released a circular on June 4, outlining key tasks in expanding healthcare reform in 2019.

The circular mandates efforts to provide more accessible and cheaper healthcare services and to further reform the system of healthcare insurance, medical care and drug circulation.

A package of documents on advancing the reform will be formulated, such as opinions on implementing the Healthy China strategy.

According to the circular, Healthy China will be carried out, and medical institutions will be better supported to provide public health services.

It also said the disease prevention and control system should be further reformed, and cancer prevention and treatment should be enhanced, with the promotion of cancer screening and accelerated registration and examination of anti-cancer drugs both at home and abroad.

The circular asks to test centralized drug procurement and usage, and reform public hospitals’ compensation system, and local authorities are required to build a dynamic and reasonable pricing system on healthcare services at public hospitals.

Efforts should be intensified to deepen comprehensive reform of public hospitals, and modern hospital management will be piloted in some hospitals.

Cross-provincial settlement of medical bills should be delivered and improved, and national and regional medical centers should be established to raise healthcare services in central and western regions, it said.

In addition, the overall quality of 500 county hospitals and 500 traditional Chinese medicine county hospitals will be improved, and development of traditional Chinese medicine will be supported.

More funds and preferential policies will be delivered to residents in deeply poor regions, and medical students will be encouraged to work in village and county hospitals, the circular said.