What do human rights have in common with the responsiveness of healthcare systems? This report, by the World Health Organisation (WHO), argues that the improvement of health is the main goal of health systems. It outlines eight domains of healthcare responsiveness and sets out how they can be understood through human rights principles, and in the context of international human rights instruments.
Protecting human rights and public health are mutually re-enforcing. Good health enables people to exercise their fundamental rights. Safeguarding their human rights empowers them to lead safe and healthy lives. This ‘human rights based approach to health’, pays equal attention to process (how people’s rights are respected within the health system) as well as outcome (the goal of improving health).
“Patient responsiveness” can be understood as how health systems interact with individuals and affect their well being. The WHO has proposed that a health system’s performance on patient responsiveness should be evaluated alongside more traditional indicators like mortality, morbidity and utilisation statistics. If a health system is “responsive”, then interactions within the health system will improve the well being of the individual, irrespective of improvements to their health.
The concept of responsiveness has been operationalised in eight domains. These are:
- Respect for the dignity of persons.
- Autonomy to participate in health-related decisions.
- Confidentiality.
- Prompt attention.
- Adequate quality of care.
- Communication.
- Access to social support networks.
- Choice of health care providers.
Human rights principles bring meaning to “responsiveness” in three principal ways:
- Synergy: human rights principles support improved health outcomes as well as respect for human rights.
- Authority and Accountability: human rights provide a universally endorsed legal basis for responsiveness, demanding accountability among governmental and other actors.
- Cohesion: all human rights demonstrate commonalities between various domains and help identify potential gaps.
