China Plans Major Expansion of Rehab and Nursing Care
China has issued a sweeping implementation plan to expand and upgrade its medical rehabilitation and nursing services, setting a target of 1.6 rehabilitation therapists per 10,000 people by 2030 as the country braces for a rapid surge in its elderly population.
The plan, jointly issued by the National Health Commission (NHC) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), was approved by the State Council on September 28 and publicly released on October 8, according to Xinhua News. It lays out six parts and 13 task measures aimed at building a “functional, interconnected, integrated Chinese-Western, and efficiently accessible” service system.
Three Quantitative Targets for 2030
The plan sets three headline benchmarks for the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030):
- Rehabilitation and nursing beds: about 0.48 per 1,000 people.
- Rehabilitation physicians: 0.7 per 10,000 people.
- Rehabilitation therapists: 1.6 per 10,000 people.
It also requires that prefecture-level cities with larger populations, deeper aging, and greater demand for rehabilitation and nursing services each establish at least one public rehabilitation hospital and nursing home. The full text, published by the NHC and republished by China Economic Net, specifies that the state will give priority support to prefecture-level and above cities with an urban resident population of more than 1 million.
The plan reflects a decision first set out at the 2025 Central Economic Work Conference, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping proposed implementing the “rehabilitation and nursing capacity expansion project” and rolling out the long-term care insurance system. Premier Li Qiang deployed the project in the 2026 Government Work Report.
A Service Network Built Around Secondary Hospitals
Under the plan, China will build a rehabilitation and nursing network that centers on secondary hospitals, uses primary-level institutions as the “net base,” draws on tertiary hospitals for guidance and support, and invites other medical institutions to participate.
Secondary hospitals will focus on patients in the recovery phase of diagnosed, stable conditions; primary-level institutions will serve patients with chronic, stable conditions and extend services into communities and homes; and tertiary hospitals will handle early rehabilitation for critically ill and complex cases, as well as quality control, technical guidance, and talent training.
The document also promotes service continuity, calling for integrated rehabilitation and nursing within medical consortiums, standardized family beds, and regulated online and door-to-door nursing. During the 15th Five-Year Plan, at least one rehabilitation or nursing clinical key specialty is to be supported per province, with provincial and prefecture-level key specialty development tilted toward rehabilitation and nursing.
Technology and Traditional Medicine at the Center
A notable feature of the plan is its emphasis on digital and frontier technology. It calls for developing “AI + rehabilitation nursing” services using rehabilitation robots and smart wearable devices for multi-dimensional data monitoring and intelligent rehabilitation training.
In fields such as neurorehabilitation, motor rehabilitation, and wound repair, the plan urges an accelerated layout of frontier technologies including brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, and bionic drives. It also calls for priority review channels for qualifying innovative rehabilitation and nursing devices and drugs. Traditional Chinese medicine is to remain central, with the promotion of acupuncture, tuina, and TCM rehabilitation protocols integrated with modern techniques.
Demographic Pressure Drives the Push
The urgency behind the plan is demographic. According to an expert commentary by Li Lu of the NDRC’s Social Development Research Institute, published by the Macroeconomic Research Institute, China’s population aged 60 and above will grow by about 14 million a year during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, reaching 390 million by 2030. The number of people aged 80 and above is projected to rise from about 42.9 million in 2024 to 57.4 million by 2030.
Li warned that China will add 1.5 million to 2 million disabled elderly people annually during the period, making “one disabled member destabilizing the entire family” a very real challenge. China entered an aging society in 2000 and a moderately aging society in 2023, and is projected to enter a severely aging society around 2032.
The commentary also highlighted a structural mismatch in China’s hospital capacity: at the end of 2024, the country had 7.32 hospital beds per 1,000 people - higher than the United States and the United Kingdom - but utilization is highly uneven, with underused secondary beds alongside strained tertiary ones.
Payment Reform and Industry Growth
The plan pairs the expansion of services with reforms to how they are paid for. It calls for including effective, urgently needed rehabilitation and nursing services in basic medical insurance; using disease-based payment for short-term inpatients; and exploring per-bed-day payment for long-term rehabilitation and nursing inpatients. Commercial insurers are encouraged to develop related products linked to basic medical insurance, long-term care insurance, and work injury insurance.
On pricing, the plan directs dynamic price adjustments to favor historically low-priced therapeutic rehabilitation training items, and adds “unaccompanied care services” as a formal price item. It also outlines support for growing the rehabilitation and nursing industry, including medical-engineering collaboration and new business models.
What’s Next
The NHC and NDRC said they will work with relevant departments and units to advance the implementation of the plan’s tasks in an orderly manner. Analysts will be watching two things in particular: whether the workforce targets - especially the 1.6 therapists per 10,000 people - can be met given the scale of training required, and whether the payment and pricing reforms are enough to make rehabilitation and nursing economically viable for hospitals, a challenge highlighted by industry coverage from Yicai.
For now, the plan marks one of China’s most comprehensive attempts to date to build a nationwide system for the care needs of its fast-aging population.