UK delegation seeks business opportunities in Indian healthcare

23 British healthcare companies and 30 delegates visited Mumbai recently, with an aim to explore ways and means to create healthy partnerships between various stakeholders within the Indian healthcare and allied space. The delegation was led by Kenneth Clarke, Senior British Cabinet Minister and UK Prime Minister’s trade envoy for healthcare.

As their first engagement in Mumbai, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) Mumbai, hosted a panel discussion on healthcare opportunities in India and areas of collaborations. The panel discussion, held at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai, brought together industry experts from the private sector, rural healthcare players, analysts, insurance players and decision makers to provide areas of opportunities to UK companies as well as to tackle the future challenges and needs of healthcare consumers and the industry. Express Healthcare was the media partner for this discussion.

Kenneth Clarke, UK Cabinet Minister, inaugurated the event and explained the reason for their visit to India. “India is an emerging nation and we have come here to explore various business opportunities in different areas of the healthcare space,” he said.

Panelists at the discussion were Dr RV Karanjekar, Global Hospitals Mumbai; Dr BR Das, SRL; Dr Vivek Desai, Hosmac; Ashish Bansal, Director, Transaction Services, Healthcare Practice, KPMG; Bishwajit Nayak, Head of Health Claims and Networking, Future Generali; Sudeep Kapila, Director, Swasth India Services; Dr Jayesh Lele, State Secretary, Indian Medical Association (IMA); and Dr Anil Pachnekar, President, IMA. The discussion was moderated by Viveka Roychowdhury, Editor, Express Healthcare and Express Pharma, The Indian Express Group.

The panel discussion acted as an opportunity to meet and interact with the members of the UK healthcare delegation who are trying to improve UK trade links in the healthcare sector in Western and Southern India by engaging with the state governments and the private sector players on a commercial basis. Topics discussed included opportunities and challenges in healthcare, bridging the gaps between affordability and accessibility of healthcare, creating better PPP models, the role of insurance in India and healthcare financing.

Expanding on the backdrop to their visit, the UK MP said, “Many people say that the National Health Service (NHS) is the closest thing the British have to a religion. But what they don’t know is that our NHS was only actually built with the help of Indian doctors, and continues to rely on them. Now some of the most exciting British companies are being drawn to India to return the favour in kind. As a result of the NHS, people in Britain have amongst the fastest access to GPs in the world, the best coordinated care, and they suffer from the fewest medical errors. Britain is quite simply a world leader in organising and administering first class medical care. The companies I am taking with me on my visit want to bring all this expertise to India. The historic partnership between Indian and British doctors has already saved millions of lives in Britain. On our visit we will be meeting with senior ministers and officials, and visiting hospitals and clinics, to work out how together we can save millions more.”

The 26-member UK health business delegation included a range of universities, hospitals and private companies with interest and expertise across sectors like primary care, healthcare management and solutions, family medicine services, ICT, medical equipment, medical education, hospital design and construction, consultancy and research and training. The delegation included senior representatives from Healthcare UK, A4e, Brit Health Care, Serco Health, BMJ Group, BT Health, London Ambulance Service, Royal Free Hospital, 3DiFM, Sheffield Hallam University, PCTI, Run Healthcare, TPP, Hurley Group, Downtown Engineering Consultants, DMC Healthcare and Boomerang Consultancy.

The delegation also visited Chennai, on May 8, 2013. During this visit Clarke visited the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, the Health Minister and Health Secretary and demonstrated UK’s commitment to a stronger, deeper, wider healthcare partnership with Tamil Nadu. On May 9, he delivered a speech at a conference hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on ‘Indo-UK Collaboration in Healthcare’. He also inaugurated the Haemato-Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at MIOT Hospitals, which involves a new technology partnership with the UK’s Whittington Hospital. He will also visited Apollo Hospitals which has strong and developing links with the UK.