China's national work plan for wholly foreign-owned hospitals sets a pilot. The work plan was issued with notice 国卫医政发〔2024〕36号 by the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration. This page summarises it. It is not a directory of hospitals and names no hospital.
What the pilot is for
The work plan says the pilot allows the setting up of wholly foreign-owned hospitals. The aims it states are to bring in high-level international medical resources, enrich the supply of medical services in China and improve the business environment, so as to provide diverse medical services to the public and to foreigners in China. The work plan also says risk prevention is to be strengthened and supervision during and after approval improved.
Where the pilot applies
The work plan allows wholly foreign-owned hospitals in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and the whole of Hainan island. Traditional Chinese medicine hospitals are excluded, and the pilot does not cover acquiring public hospitals.
Conditions for the foreign investor
An overseas investor applying to set up a wholly foreign-owned hospital must be a legal person able to bear civil liability on its own. The investor must have experience, directly or indirectly, in medical and health investment and management. The work plan lists three further conditions for the investor:
- provide advanced hospital management ideas, management models and service models
- provide medical technology and equipment at an internationally leading level
- make up for or improve local shortfalls in medical service capacity, medical technology and facilities, and widen the range of services
Conditions for setting up and running the hospital
The work plan says a wholly foreign-owned hospital must be set up and run under laws including the Law on Basic Medical and Health Care and the Promotion of Health, the Biosecurity Law, the Data Security Law, the Regulation on the Administration of Medical Institutions and the Regulation on the Administration of Human Genetic Resources. It sets these conditions:
- The hospital may be for-profit or non-profit.
- The hospital may be a general hospital, a specialty hospital or a rehabilitation hospital, at the tertiary level. It may not be a psychiatric, infectious disease, blood disease, traditional Chinese medicine, integrated Chinese and Western medicine or ethnic minority medicine hospital.
- Haematology may not be registered among its clinical departments.
- The hospital may not carry out treatment with higher medical and ethical risk. The work plan names human organ transplantation, assisted reproductive technology, prenatal screening and diagnosis, inpatient psychiatric treatment and experimental tumour cell therapy.
- The hospital may employ foreign physicians, and physicians from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, for short-term practice under the rules. Mainland Chinese personnel must make up at least 50 percent of the hospital's management staff and of its health technical staff.
- The hospital's information management system must connect to the local medical service supervision platform. The servers that store information such as electronic medical records and medical equipment must be located in China.
- A hospital that meets the medical insurance rules can apply, by the set procedure, for designation under medical insurance. The work plan also supports hospitals in linking with commercial health insurance, whether Chinese or foreign.
Approval and licence
The local health administration is responsible for admission and for supervision during and after operation.
For set-up approval and practising registration, the prefecture-level health administration reviews first and reports to the provincial health administration. If the conditions are met, the provincial health administration issues the set-up approval and the practising licence. The work plan says the procedure, application materials and time limits follow the Interim Measures for Sino-foreign joint venture and cooperative medical institutions and a Ministry of Health notice on adjusting approval powers for such institutions. The licence of a wholly foreign-owned hospital is valid for 5 years, and an extension can be applied for before it expires.
Practice and supervision
The work plan says health administrations should bring wholly foreign-owned hospitals into medical quality and safety management, and encourages them to take part in hospital accreditation. These hospitals must operate under Chinese laws and carry out treatment under clinical guidelines, technical operating rules, industry standards and medical ethics rules. Provincial and prefecture-level health administrations supervise by territory under the relevant laws.
The work plan also says local health administrations should monitor and assess how these hospitals operate, and that where earlier rules differ from the work plan, the work plan prevails.
What this page did not establish
- The work plan was read as published on the Chinese central government portal. Later changes were not checked.
- Rules for existing joint-venture and cooperative hospitals were not collected, apart from the work plan's reference to them.
- Local implementation plans for the pilot areas were not read.
Questions people ask
Is this a directory of foreign hospitals in China?
No. This page summarises a national work plan and names no hospital.
Where does the pilot apply?
The work plan lists Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and the whole of Hainan island.
Can a wholly foreign-owned hospital be a traditional Chinese medicine hospital?
No. The work plan excludes traditional Chinese medicine hospitals from the pilot.
Sources
The source above was read on the date shown. This page is an unofficial summary of general administrative information. It is not published by the bodies named above, and it is not medical advice. If it differs from the official pages, the official pages prevail, and rules may change after the check date.
Entry facts come from the hospital’s own pages as read on the dates shown in each source note; this unofficial summary is not medical advice, and the hospital’s current published information prevails. Medical and legal notice