Malaysia's Health Ministry will widen its Hospital Services Outsourcing Programme under Budget 2027, with the goal of cutting patient waiting times. The announcement came out of Ipoh on October 11 as the ministry set out its priorities ahead of the budget's tabling. The programme places selected hospital services with private facilities so overcrowded public hospitals can work through their queues faster. Expanding it is expected to cover more hospitals and more types of care than the current arrangement allows. Waiting times for surgery and specialist appointments have been a persistent complaint among patients, and the ministry has been under pressure to act. Outsourcing is not new to the ministry, which has contracted private providers for certain services over the years, but officials now want to push that model further. Concrete figures on the funding attached to the expansion have not yet been spelled out publicly. The measure is one of the health commitments being lined up for Budget 2027.