Primary Health Care

Background

It is our pleasure to introduce the fourth edition of the Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines List for Primary Health Care. In keeping with the goals of the National Drug Policy, the review was done to keep pace with the advances in the fi eld of medicine. Changes in this edition are a refl ection of current epidemiology norms and recent developments in medicine.

The challenges facing the health sector are numerous but not insurmountable. The effective and effi cient use of medicines will go a long way towards meeting these challenges.

Our goal of evidence based medicine selection has been strengthened in this edition. Affordability, without compromising quality, has been taken into account.

Has the process of developing human resource's been geared towards making Primary Health Care a priority?" This is a question to which the previous edition of HST Update drew attention. We continue the debate by focusing on a cadre of health workers operating at the community level of health care.

Health system strengthening is a key objective in both the Negotiated Service Delivery Agreement and the Re-engineered Primary Health Care approach. Effective utilisation of routine data is crucial for improving the effectiveness of service delivery as well as for improvement of health information systems. There remains considerable scope for improved utilisation of routine data for quality improvement.

The SAHR 2011 provides valuable policy and empirical information on a range of issues that are related to and impact on the Negotiated Service Delivery Agreement and primary health care re-engineering as envisaged by the National Department of Health (NDoH). A range of experts provide commentary on topics ranging from rural health, health technology to human resources. SAHR 2011 also contains a section on core health issues, where developments in health information systems, financing health care, and health legislation and policy are discussed. The Review concludes with the Indicators chapter which presents a selection of the best available data on the functioning and performance of the health system.

Workforce planning for the health service is challenging and complex. Nonetheless, workforce planning is an important process. The health, policy, legislative and economic context influence the task of visualising and implementing improvements in the health workforce. The policy context provides the framework for the development of the HRH Strategy. The Minister of Health, in his Budget Speech in May 2011, announced the re-engineering of the Primary Health Care system and the overhaul of the health system.
Implementing the three main streams for re-engineering Primary Health Care is the short-term priority. These streams are: District Clinical Specialist teams, a School Health Programme and Community Outreach PHC Teams.

The Problem Statement