Hospital Strategy Project, South Africa
Health Partners Southern Africa participated in the preparation of the strategic plans for transforming South Africa's 423 public hospitals.
These plans aimed to:
- redress past inequity in hospital access
- deal with serious inefficiency and declining quality of care
- redirect resources to primary health care.
The planning exercise took place at national level and within each of the country's nine provinces.
The plans covered five main initiatives:
- The development of national affordability guidelines for rationalising hospital services and staff for the whole country and for all levels of care
- A national policy framework and implementation plan for decentralisation and reform of hospital management
- Defining a labour relations policy in the management of hospitals
- Setting out a national strategy for hospital cost recovery
- The analysis of 'contracting out' in public hospitals.