The Ministry of Public Health has rejected claims of widespread corruption involving health promotion and prevention funds at community hospitals.

Permanent secretary Somruek Chungsaman said an investigation into 16,346 complaints submitted through the Mor Prom application found only 0.3% involved irregular disbursements.

Of the complaints, 35.8% were verified as accurate, while 32.9% were related to KPI reporting, 24.8% to human error and 6.2% to other issues.

Dr Somruek said the ministry would focus on the disbursement irregularities and work with the National Health Security Office (NHSO) to identify those responsible and impose appropriate punishment.

However, he cautioned against concluding that the funding was a major source of corruption.

"We will not reach such a conclusion because the figure is only 0.3%," he said. "We need more information and further investigation."

Dr Somruek said medical staff remained committed to protecting public health and should not be judged collectively over the findings.

He added that not all health promotion and prevention services generated payments for community hospitals because some services were not reimbursed by the NHSO.

Where payments were made, the money was transferred directly into hospital accounts, not to any medical personnel.

The ministry said complaints from 7,167 people involved 2,439 hospitals, with 82.8% being community hospitals.

About 77% of the complaints related to health promotion and prevention services, for which the NHSO allocates about 20 billion baht annually.

Dr Sophon Iamsirithavorn, the ministry's deputy permanent secretary, said some errors could be linked to KPI reporting.

Health workers often record information for the first and second quarters according to KPI reporting periods, potentially creating discrepancies given the large volume of data.

The ministry plans to adjust KPIs to reduce staff workload. It will also review more than 1.3 billion records involving over 26 million users to correct errors, although the reported error rate is only 0.001%.

"We check for accuracy and correct any mistakes, particularly in the health promotion and prevention channel, to ensure public trust in the application," Dr Sophon said.

Meanwhile, Dr Jadej Thammatacharee, secretary-general of the NHSO, said the agency would improve information-sharing systems so users could receive real-time notifications when their healthcare rights were used.