Current Health Expenditure (CHE) in Sri Lanka in 2015 was Rs. 326 billion, equivalent to 3.0% of GDP, and Rs. 15,595 per capita with provisional estimates in 2016 of Rs 356 billion or 3.0% of GDP and Rs 16,895 per capita. The government financed 46% while the private sector accounted for 54% of the healthcare costs in 2015 and 2016. While 38% of the overall spending was on inpatient care, the share of outpatient care was 21%. Pharmacy sales of medicines were responsible for 20% of health spending. Expenditure on public health programmes was 5%. According to the type of institution, 49% of the spending was incurred in hospitals while 44% was in non-hospital facilities.

The improvements in the present publication include several changes in the underlying data sources and revisions to estimation methods in compliance with international standards. This publication provides updated estimates for all years since 1990 to ensure full comparability of the SLHA estimates across different years, in addition to being compatible with all three frameworks, namely SHA 2011, SHA 1.0 and SLNHA.