Annual lecture by Christopher Murray, who speaks in the UK about the work on health systems performance assessment (HSPA) at the World Health Organization. He gives some reflections on this work and traces some implications for the UK. These reflections are based on five years of work involving a large number of researchers and policy analysts at WHO and in academic institutions around the world.

Annual lecture by Christopher Murray, who speaks in the UK about the work on health systems performance assessment (HSPA) at the World Health Organization. He gives some reflections on this work and traces some implications for the UK. These reflections are based on five years of work involving a large number of researchers and policy analysts at WHO and in academic institutions around the world.

Six topics are covered:

1. The political economy of WHO’s work on health systems performance assessment.
2. The conceptual framework for health systems performance assessment including its evolution after The World Health Report 2000.
3. Systematic attempts to fill key information gaps with new data collection efforts.
4. Some of the remaining methodological challenges and some small steps in the direction of new methods that may help in the task ahead.
5. New empirical findings obtained over the last few years.
6. Final reflections.