Regional Health Management Team (RHMT) recommended PBF to enhance Performance in Health Sector.

On 28^th June 2012, Rungwe PBF Pilot Project Organized one day meeting for Regional Health Management Team (RHMT)- Mbeya Region and  City Council Management Team Members (CHMT)  at Regional Medical Officer (RMO) Conference room. It was part of Performance Based Financing (PBF) advocacy in the Region and we used the session as an opportunity to give feedback on the project implementation to the participants.

The meeting was officially opened by the Chairman of Christian Social Services Commission (CSSC) Southern Zone after some brief comments by Regional Medical Officer- Mbeya Region.

Thereafter, the Zonal PBF Coordinator made presentations, on PBF as Health Financing Model, and feedback of Rungwe PBF Pilot Project Implementation from 2010- June 2012. PBF) In a nutshell, the presentation contained: Basic Definition PBF, PBF inception in: Asia, Africa and Tanzania, PBF Multi- Country Network, Reasons for PBF to be Popular, Key Principles of Performance Based Financing (PBF), PBF Model on separation of functions. The other part was on Project inception, its objectives, expected output, stakeholders, main activities realized, challenges and achievement .

After the presentation, the participants discussed many issues; which included:

-          Strategies needed to make the decision makers understand the advantages of Output Based Financing against traditional model - input based financing,

-          Signing Service Agreement to lower Level health facilities modalities discussed

-          Delay in fund disbursement for Basket Fund to Health facilities in various Local Governments was briefly discussed. It was noted that part of the cause is delay of reporting as many councils have no specific officer to deal with that. Second, Budgetary sessions need to be amended, as presently the Budget session ends at the end of August, while financial year starts 1^st July.

-          Another issue raised was to reinstate the OPRAS (Open Performance Result Assessment) for her staff in order to increase performance in work place.  This was considered well aligned with Performance Based Financing. It was noted that there is need to have forums to advocated PBF from Lower level to higher level – Ministry, which was expressed as what the Project does.

As a way forward, the participants proposed the following:

-      The responsible authority i.e. Local Governments to work on modalities for lower Level Health Facilities to Sign Service Agreement in Rungwe District.

-      The Project in Collaboration with the financier see ways to incorporate the Regional Health Management team members to be trained on PBF

-      Disseminate PBF through various avenues in the Region such as Regional Health Committee which is the decision making organ.

-      Scale up PBF in Mbeya Region- all districts of Mbeya Region.  Regional Medical Officer indicated that the Region is ready to provide support needed for the scale up process.

From the general observation, it is obvious that the meeting was successful and it made the members enthusiastic, that with the available resources the health Care status in the region could be  improved provided that the financing model  is changed from input to output based financing. Below is the group photo of the participants after the meeting.