LSE Festival 2018 | Universal Health Coverage in the Global South: what is needed to make it work? [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Kalipso Chalkidou, Professor Ken Shadlen, Dr Daniel Wang | Although Universal health coverage is a pillar of the modern welfare state, the successful design and implementation of arrangements to deliver on this promise faces enormous challenges. This panel, with perspectives from health policy, law, and political science, examines these challenges and reflects on national experiences in developing countries. Topics will include: the imperatives of determining which healthcare products and services are covered; national and regional strategies for securing stable supplies of quality healthcare services at affordable prices; the relationship between the spread of patents on pharmaceutical products, a new phenomenon, and governments’ commitments to provide essential medicines; and the tensions between health technology assessment systems designed to make judgements on cost-effectiveness and legal systems that offer opportunities for individuals and groups to secure expensive health products via litigation. Kalipso Chalkidou (@kchalkidou) is the Director of Global Health Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, and a Professor of Practice in Global Health at Imperial College London. Ken Shadlen is Professor of Development Studies in the Department of International Development of LSE. He is currently Head of Department (September 2017-2020). Daniel Wang is a Lecturer in Health and Human Rights at Queen Mary University of London. Justin Parkhurst (@justinparkhurst) is Associate Professor in Global Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy at LSE and an honorary Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The panel is brought together by the Global Health Initiative (@LSEGlobalHealth), a newly established cross-departmental research platform set up to increase the coherence and visibility of Global Health research activity across the School, both internally and externally. It provides support for interdisciplinary engagement and showcases LSE’s ability to apply rigorous social science research to emerging global health challenges