State Council reorganises health and family planning roles in name of efficiency

The functions of the Health Ministry and some of those of the Population and Family Planning Commission will be merged and a new food and drug safety regulator with ministerial-level status formed, the State Council has announced.

The rest of the work of the commission - on population policy and strategy - is to be taken on by the chief economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission.

The stated goal of the changes is to optimise the allocation of resources to medical care, public health and family planning services and improve the health of newborn babies and the population as a whole.

Cai Fang , director of the Institute of Population and Labour Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the moves did not signal any changes to family planning policy nor a loosening of birth controls, but were simply aimed at improving efficiency.

Deputy health minister Huang Jiefu , welcomed the restructuring.

He said the Population and Family Planning Commission needed abolishing because "times have changed". The decision to combine its family planning and birth control functions with the work of the Health Ministry under a new national health and family planning commission was "in accordance with the global trend", he said.

Still, Huang said the restructuring would be a "great challenge" because "many departments need to be integrated and officials have to find their place".