Following the completion of the national consultation on the country’s National Health Strategic Plan (NHSP) 2016-2020, a half day validation workshop with approximately 60 health and medical workers, successfully held this morning (Tuesday 1st December).
In the past months, the NHSP 2016-2020 review team had conducted consultations in the provinces including the capital, Honiara and since then have commenced the compilation of the review report.
The validation workshop is to provide an opportunity for the review team to present to MHMS Officials, stakeholders and partners, the progresses the ministry had made against the mandated key strategic areas of the NHSP 2016-2020 and the challenges and issues that have come about throughout the duration of the strategy’s timeline. Furthermore to establish the recommendations on preparing the pathway that the ministry will take in its next course of direction for the next 5 to 10 years.
At the opening of the workshop, Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) Permanent Secretary Mrs. Pauline McNeil acknowledged the job well done by the review team.
“The review team did a superb work because despite the ongoing efforts against the current pandemic, MHMS was determined to ensure its other core functions including this review progressed. They have reached nearly all provinces and ensured they expanded their connections with the service providers and end users of our health services to collect as much information that will inform the review process”.
Mrs McNeil went on to highlight the challenges of the reviewers undertaking the review. “The undertaking of this review has not been an easy one as firstly the NHSP lacked a firm monitoring and evaluation framework that would enable the team to measure against the performance and the implementation of the Strategic Plan. In view of this, it is critical that a strong Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework is captured in the next plan. Secondly, there was no mid-term review of the current strategic plan and hence made it also somewhat near impossible to measure its progress mid-way through the implementation of this review”
The Permanent Secretary further highlighted, “ The lessons learnt from this review process will better the next national health strategic plan with the aim to increase health investments in public health and clinical services, infrastructure in light of the current pandemic to repurpose health facilities and hospitals, specialise equipment and of course our investment in human capita”.
The workshop commenced with presentations of the key findings by the review committee followed by discussions in groups which included, MHMS corporate services, public health and health care, planning and policy, development partners. This was followed with group presentations.
Mrs McNeil thanked participants for their constructive and meaningful contributions during the workshop and acknowledged the presence of partners at the workshop including government of Australia and WHO for the funding and technical support towards the review.
Media Release from MHMS Corporate Communication Office