6. Extensive efforts were made to roll out practical activities of Mass Line education among Party members. Substantial results were achieved in the “Health Action to Serve the Masses.” In accordance with the unified plans of the Central Committee of the CPC, the NHFPC launched practical activities of Mass Line education among Party members in July 2013, and started the “grand grassroots survey research.” Ten survey research groups successively went to 100 counties or cities in 25 provinces, where they obtained first-hand materials. Leaders of the NHFPC held 11 lectures for the “Face-to-Face Auditorium.” Efforts were made to solve prominent problems for the masses and initiate the “Health Action to Serve the Masses.” Moreover, the “Nationwide Volunteer Medical Consultation Week,” in which 600,000 medical staff from 23,000 medical institutions took part and 11 million people got diagnosed and treated, was promoted and well-received by the masses at the grassroots level.

The NHFPC joined hands with six other ministerial departments, such as the Ministry of Public Security. It took the “Special Action of Further Rectifying the Medical Treatment Order and Knocking down Medical Practices without Obtaining Relevant Qualifications.” Some cases were dealt with, and criminal activities, including “illegal clinics” and “hospital scalpers,” were severely cracked down, rectifying and standardizing the medical treatment order and guaranteeing the health rights and interests of the general public. For the sake of standardizing medical treatment behavior and building a new spirit in the medical profession, the NHFPC printed and issued the Circular on Implementing the “Nine No’s” to Improve Hospital Ethics and the Circular on Promoting the Practice of Keeping Records of Improper Activities of Commercial Bribery in the Pharmaceutical Sales Fields.

7. There was plenty of public debate about the practice of collecting social compensation fees, and the NHFPC demanded that local departments concerned standardize the management of social compensation fees. On July 11, 2013, some lawyers requested that 31 provincial health and family planning commissions and provincial departments of finance publicize the details on the collection and audit of social compensation fees in 2012, thus drawing the general public’s attention to the issue of social compensation fees. On September 4, the spokesman of the NHFPC made it clear that: the collection of social compensation fees has its legal basis; the management of social compensation fees is part of the budget control of local governments because they are not revenues of the central government or the health and family planning departments; it is not acceptable to tie social compensation fees to expenditures on the work of family planning; and health and family planning departments should, under the guidance and direction of local governments, do a good job in publicizing, in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, information on the collection and management of social compensation fees. On September 18, the National Audit Office published the audit results of social compensation fees collected in some counties in Gansu and eight other provinces (municipalities).

The NHFPC urged local departments concerned to take practical measures to further standardize the collection and management of social compensation fees. On November 1, the NHFPC published the results of the trials of several cases for administrative reconsideration concerning social compensation fees in 14 provinces. In the case of the seven provinces that gave replies after the legal time limit was over, the NHFPC made its decision of the administrative reconsideration, which stated that such practices did not conform to the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information. In the case of the seven provinces that failed to give an open reply to the request of disclosing government information, the NHFPC made its decision of the administrative reconsideration, which stated that they had to give the replies within a prescribed period of time.