Britain announced plans to try to change the way many under-developed coun­tries pro­vide care. Heather Stew­art tells us that aid will be used to influ­ence gov­ern­ments to give free health­care to preg­nant women and chil­dren. The Guardian reports 6 bil­lion pounds will be spent on health by 2015.

Gor­don Brown has offered to help some of the world’s poor­est coun­tries to make health­care free – start­ing with preg­nant women and chil­dren – in a push to widen access to doc­tors across Africa and Asia.

The Depart­ment for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment (DfID) is among the largest donors to many devel­op­ing coun­tries, and has pledged to spend £6bn on health by 2015. Brown hopes to use an expand­ing aid bud­get to influ­ence the way pub­lic ser­vices are deliv­ered on the ground.

The prime min­is­ter has writ­ten to sev­eral gov­ern­ments, includ­ing those of Kenya, Nepal and Liberia, urg­ing them to con­sider mak­ing health­care free, and offer­ing Britain’s help with the tran­si­tion. DfID said that could mean help with tech­ni­cal assis­tance, drugs and ensur­ing that doc­tors and nurses receive fair pay deals.

Inter­na­tional devel­op­ment sec­re­tary Dou­glas Alexan­der said: “It is not right that peo­ple are denied basic health­care because they are too poor. Poor health and poverty go hand-in-hand and so we must first improve people’s health if we are to improve their lives.”

A spokesman for DfID said the UK had been encour­aged by the results of efforts to abol­ish up-front fees for health­care in sev­eral coun­tries, includ­ing Uganda, Ghana and Zam­bia. They argue that for a rel­a­tively low cost, doc­tors can reach many thou­sands more patients, who could not afford to pay for help.

Since Ghana began pro­vid­ing free health­care for expec­tant moth­ers, with Britain’s help, 433,000 more women have been treated; in Burundi, the num­ber of health checks offered to the under-fives has tre­bled since fees were scrapped.

“This won’t hap­pen overnight but we hope in the years ahead we will see a his­toric shift that will rev­o­lu­tionise health ser­vices in the world’s poor­est coun­tries,” said Alexander.

World lead­ers promised to reduce mater­nal mor­tal­ity by two-thirds by 2015, as one of the Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals, but a recent UN report said it was one of the tar­gets against which least progress had been made. More than half a mil­lion women a year die in child­birth or as a result of falling preg­nant. Brown and Alexan­der believe access to health­care must be widened, if the goal is to be reached.