THE Ministry of Health wants an independent accreditation board that is responsible for certifying and controlling quality of health services provided in the country.

This will help health services provided to meet national and international standards and promote medical tourism in the country.

The idea was floated yesterday in Dar es Salaam by Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Dr Grace Magembe while opening a one-day conference of Tanzanian and British health experts.

"I really commend the organization of Tanzanians living in the UK who collaborate with our health institutions here in training, research and innovation, including the use of information and communication technology in medicine," she said.

She said that the cooperation is important because it helps to deliver professional services to improve and thus enable the country to become the centre of medical tourism for east and central African countries.

"I would like to ask the experts to cooperate with them in preparing guidelines and finally a body that will be responsible for certifying provision of health services with the aim of controlling quality of health services in the country as they do in the UK,” she said.

"I have listened to the presentation of an expert from the UK who has explained how the system of accreditation and quality control of medical services is done and how they take appropriate measures there and I concluded that we can do that here in Tanzania too," she said.

She said that there are already institutions and councils that do that do the same but there are still improvements that need to be made in accordance with national and international standards.

"We need to have an independent accreditation body that will tell us where we do well and where we do not do well with the aim of improving our services," she said.

Executive Director of Benjamin Mkapa Hospital in Dodoma Prof Abel Makubi said the academic conference aimed to share experience in various medical issues.

Prof. Gideon Mlawa, Treasurer of the Tanzania UK Healthcare Diaspora Association (TUHEDA), said cooperation between it and Tanzania will be based more on the exchange of expertise, training and research with the aim of improving health services.

"In this partnership, we Tanzanians living in the UK bring back home what we have acquired, including expertise but we will also build pharmaceutical factories and medical devices to boost the health sector in our country," he said.

Health experts from the national, regional and referral hospitals met their colleagues from the Queen-Elizabeth Hospital in the UK under coordination of TUHEDA to discuss various methods of improving health services in the country.