"Achieving full population coverage and in particular improving financial protection"
Robert Yates, Director of the Universal Healthcare Policy Forum, Chatham House on the main challenges facing the healthcare sector in Ireland
What's your name?
Robert Yates
What position do you hold?
Project Director of the Universal Healthcare (UHC) Policy Forum, Chatham House, London.
Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is an independent policy institute
based in London whose mission is to help build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world.
How long have you held the position?
3 years.
What are your day to day responsibilities?
My main area of expertise is in the political economy of UHC advising governments and
other health stakeholders on how to plan, finance and implement national universal
healthcare reforms.
What is your professional background?
As an economist and a manager in the UK’s National Health Service. I previously worked as
as a Senior Health Economist with the UK’s Department for International Development and
the World Health Organisation advising numerous governments in Asia and Africa on health
financing policy and health systems reform.
Tell us something very few people know about you?
I started my career in the oil industry.
You are speaking at the 2018 Health Summit. What are you speaking about?
My talk will be called: The politics of universal health coverage: A question of willpower? In
this I will look at the political economy of universal health coverage (UHC), looking at the
political costs and benefits of different UHC strategies.
What challenges do you see for the healthcare sector in Ireland?
Achieving full population coverage and in particular improving financial protection by
reducing out-of-pocket payments for services. Furthermore, increasing levels of public health
financing to sustain UHC as the population ages and as new technologies drive up health care
costs.
Where would you like to see the health service in 10 years time?
Closer to the ultimate goal of UHC (which Ireland has signed up to twice at the UN) whereby
everybody receives the quality health services they need without suffering financial
hardship.
