TY - JOUR T1 - Benefiting the NHS through innovation: how to ensure international health partnerships are genuinely reciprocal JF - BMJ Global Health JO - BMJ Global Health DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-004936 VL - 6 IS - Suppl 6 SP - e004936 AU - Hamdi Issa AU - William Townsend AU - Matthew Harris Y1 - 2021/11/01 UR - http://gh.bmj.com/content/6/Suppl_6/e004936.abstract N2 - Summary boxTo achieve this, partnerships need to transform their approach to knowledge exchanges and coordinating organisations will have to ensure this equilibrium is maintained.Genuine reciprocity requires bidirectional learning of technical knowledge (ie, hard skills, innovations, care practices, etc) as well as cultural knowledge (ie, knowledge about the country, cultural competency, etc).To achieve this, power needs to be acknowledged and accounted for; learning ‘about’ oneself or the low-income country (LIC) is not a substitute for learning ‘from’ the LIC, and the propensity for high-income country partners to set the standard for what is ‘worthy knowledge’ will need continuous and conscious challenge.For IHPs to be vehicles for the National Health Service (NHS) to benefit from the innovations of low-income and middle-income countries, technical, as well as cultural, learning is required. Divisions in institutional capacity should not become a barrier to reprocity.Reciprocity is poorly conceptualised as a term and practice within international health partnerships (IHPs); however, it is key to an effective IHP and is possible through explicit shared decision-making processes and willingness from both partners to learn technical expertise from each other.International health partnerships (IHPs) are institutional arrangements between high-income country (HIC) health institutions and counterparts, usually in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), and typically involve secondments or volunteering placements to support clinical delivery, capacity building and health systems strengthening. Increasingly, reciprocity is viewed as key to an effective IHP.1 There are few reasons to contest the principle, for example, because it can allow both sides of a partnership to benefit, but it is nonetheless striking how poorly conceptualised it is as a term and practice within IHPs. The report, Global Health Partnerships: the UK contribution to health in developing countries,2 placed ‘mutual learning’ at the core of how institutions should approach IHPs. It propelled the … ER -