LAHORE, Aug 11: The Punjab government has assigned task to the Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) to ‘harmonise’ the health sector through effective collaboration and synergies with all the relevant stakeholders.

A spokesman for health department has said the Punjab Healthcare Commission is an independent regulatory body, which was created under the Punjab Healthcare Commission Act 2010.

The PHC Act 2010 is the only legislation in the country that empowers this commission to regulate all healthcare establishments for improving quality of healthcare in the province.

As defined by the PHC Act, ‘healthcare establishments’ include hospital, diagnostic clinic, Tibb clinic, acupuncture, physiotherapy clinic or any other premises or conveyance wholly or partly used for providing healthcare service both in public and private sectors.

The spokesman said on the other hand, legislations like Pakistan Medical and Dental Act 1962 and Pakistan Nursing Council Act 1973 regulated medical, dental and nursing education.

Acts like PDMA and PNC cater to standardisation of teaching hospitals to fulfill requirements for teaching and training for under-and-post graduates.

Whereas the main objective of PHC is to licence all healthcare establishments in both public and private sectors by introducing a regimen of clinical governance through implementation of minimum service delivery standards for primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare establishments.

The spokesman said there should be a clear understanding of this fact that the medical, dental, nursing and other alternate medicine practitioners had to be registered/licenced by their respective councils.

He said the regulatory functions of PHC did not overlap any of the functions of other health regulatory bodies like PDMA, PNC etc as its area of jurisdiction is completely different and distinct. “Any misperceptions about PHC are due to lack of clarity in its functions, especially related to regulation of teaching/tertiary care hospitals. The PHC is a complementary and not a parallel structure regulating healthcare service delivery for better patient outcomes.”