This study considers the issue of health care provision in Saudi Arabia, looking in particular at the challenges for health care providers and ministry officials. Although the study concentrates on factors specific to Saudi Arabia, it also examines the problem from a broadly international perspective. In particular, the study explores the experience of health care modernisation in the United Kingdom to conceptualise the practicality of fusing public services with market ideals. There is a pressing need to modernise the Saudi health care system with the economic burden on the state-funded Ministry of Health being an unsustainable means of providing health care in future. The solution resides partially in opening the public health care system to alternative sources of management and revenue. In particular, public-private partnerships will be considered as a viable means of funding health care in Saudi Arabia and for improving standards and the quality of care. This study concludes that, whereas the move towards a public-private partnership approach to health care provision has been touted as a precondition for modernisation and development, the precise fusion between government and non-government forces remains a source of conjecture. As a result, the study advocates caution when evaluating the benefits and pitfalls of partnerships between public and private actors.
Keywords: Privatisation; Saudi Arabia; health care system; health financing; public-private partnerships.