The Ghana Health Service with support from Health Partners has organized the 2024 Senior Managers’ Meeting Prime in Accra under the theme; “Accelerating Towards UHC with a Strengthened PHC through the Networks of Practice Approach”. The two-day program had in attendance Senior Managers from both National, and Regional Health Directorates. The aim was to help catch up on the priority policy and operational issues that came up at the previous year’s meeting.
Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Service, in his welcome address noted that the Senior Managers meeting (SMM) forms part of the wider process of assessing the performance of the health sector and determining priority issues to feed into the annual planning as well as provide direction for senior managers on priority intervention. He revealed that there was no gain in denying the fact that Primary Health Care (PHC) continues to be the most plausible, feasible, and equitable route to Universal Health Coverage (UHC). He said the Networks of Practice(NoP) was one of the country’s strategies to achieve UHC by 2030.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye said some significant barriers to service delivery at the sub-national level, such as poor referral systems, inefficient provider-payment mechanisms, and inadequate capacity to deliver the basic package of PHC services, remain key operational challenges that call for redress.
He mentioned that for the Ghana Health Service to reposition its health system on an even keel towards the attainment of UHC, the Service adopted bold and innovative strategies in 2020 under the country’s UHC Roadmap where all its five guiding principles recognize PHC as the level of emphasis and the NoP as the special purpose vehicles. He called on Senior Managers to accelerate methods and strategies for the country to attain UHC.
Dr. Baffour Awuah, the special advisor to the Minister of Health who delivered a speech on behalf of the Minister, commended the Senior Managers for their efforts and commitment towards quality healthcare delivery in the previous year. He urged them to maintain that same level of commitment as they journeyed through 2024 to ensure the target of achieving UHC was attained.
Dr. Francis Kasolo, the Country Representative of the World Health Organization said the initiative reinforced the commitment of the health sector to identify innovative approaches to increase access to quality essential health care and population-based services for all.
An Implementation Guideline for the Networks of Practice was unveiled at the meeting to serve as reference material for all health sector stakeholders and to provide a step-by-step process for the operationalization of the NoP.
The Networks of Practice is an initiative that reinforces the commitment of the health sector to identify innovative approaches to increase access to quality essential healthcare for all.
SOURCE: Public Relations UNIT, GHS
