Healthcare UK seeks public and private partnerships at Arab Health

Healthcare UK is holding a series of meetings at Arab Health in a bid to secure partnerships with public health authorities and private healthcare operators in the Middle East.

Meetings will be held in a bid to deliver British expertise in designing, building and operating the Hospital of the Future in the Middle East, with The Healthcare UK team inviting interested parties to book private meetings.

In those meetings, parties will discuss the UK’s experience of delivering universal healthcare, free at the point of care, at a system-level and how that could support the Middle East in meeting its health transformation objectives, including Healthcare UK’s access to the UK’s leaders in robotics, digital and AI.

Healthcare UK managing director, Deborah Kobewka, describes Healthcare UK’s expertise and appetite for collaboration in the Middle East, said: “The bold programme of healthcare development underway in the Middle East is facilitating and leveraging new partnerships with UK healthcare organisations and providers. After all, where better to come for support in developing a healthcare system than the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) which, since its inception in 1948, has ensured universal access to high-quality healthcare, based on clinical need and not ability to pay?

“The challenges faced today by the Middle East in developing universal, sustainable healthcare systems are the same challenges the NHS has been using its decades of experience to address in the UK. For good reason, NHS expertise is in demand all over the world.”

Partnerships explored during the meetings will build on previous work by Healthcare UK and its partners, including Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai.

The Moorfields international operating model – developed over the last 11 years in the United Arab Emirates – incorporates teaching and research, as well as consultant-led clinical care. Moorfields Dubai provides day case surgery and outpatient diagnostic and treatment services for most surgical and non-surgical eye conditions, equivalent to that available at the UK main sites.

Moorfields Dubai has treated more than 180,000 patients over the 11 years, from over 185 countries, and has quickly become one of the GCC’s leading eye care institutions. It is owned and managed by the NHS Foundation Trust and maintains close links with London, enabling patients in the GCC to receive the best and up-to-date eye care treatment in the world.

Dr Ben Maruthappu, co-founder of the NHS Innovation Accelerator and leading physician, entrepreneur and technologist said: “The UK’s NHS is transforming provision in the healthcare sector - in a way that other industries such as retail, travel and banking have already undergone – and will continue to do so. The opportunities offered by technology to innovate in healthcare across personalised medicine, digital and data, devices and wearables are being further brought together to create scalable, accessible and sustainable healthcare.”

Arab Health runs until 31 January.