Facilitating Compliance with Quality Standards at Primary Health Care Clinics through Adequate Health Care Resources

Abstract

Compliance with quality standards in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) is key in the realisation of the National Health Insurance (NHI), through which the country’s citizens could benefit from universal health coverage and a unified health system. However, contrary to the imperative stated above, the researcher, as the manager for compliance with quality standards at primary health care (PHC) clinics in Ekurhuleni, has for over a period of two years observed a pattern of non-compliance with quality standards. This prompted an exploration on how compliance with quality standards at these health establishments could be facilitated. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, and contextual research design was used. In-depth semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 12 managers at PHC clinics in Ekurhuleni. Data were analysed using Tesch’s protocol. The findings of this study revealed that PHC clinic managers in Ekurhuleni were faced with challenges in terms of management practices and the required health care resources, implying these as reasons for non-compliance with quality standards. Recommendations include allocating sufficient and appropriate human resources, providing adequate medical supplies and equipment, and increasing the budgets for PHC clinics in Ekurhuleni. These recommendations pertaining to the provision of adequate health care resources ought to be embraced by senior managers in Ekurhuleni as a strategy to facilitate compliance with quality standards at PHC clinics.

Exploring quality standards implementation at a South African municipality’s health facilities

“…As a result, the need for ideal health establishments was seen as being critical. The findings obtained agree with those of Mogakwe, Ally and Magobe ( 2020 :6, 11–12) and Manyisa and Aswegen ( 2017 :35), who explain that a faulty infrastructure and a lack of space for conducting various programmes in primary healthcare facilities tend to compromise patient privacy, impede service delivery and impact care quality negatively.…”

Factors that influence the implementation of (inter)nationally endorsed health and social care standards: a systematic review and meta-summary

“…Three papers were identified as being part of one study. [37][38][39] These were crosschecked by a second reviewer (NO'R) to confirm identical setting and population and were counted as one study thereafter.…”

“…Of the 35 studies included, 9 originated from the USA, [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] 8 from Australia, [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56] 5 from the UK, 28 30 57-59 4 from the Netherlands, 60-63 2 from Iran 64 65 and 1 from each of Bangladesh, 66 Brazil, 67 Croatia, 68 Ethiopia, 69 Jordan, 70 Republic of South Africa [37][38][39] and WHO regions (including 180 countries). 71 The majority of studies used quantitative methods (n=21) 28 40-43 46 48 50 51 55-59 61 62 64 65 67 68 71 with questionnaires, followed by qualitative methods using mainly focus groups and interviews as data collection approaches (n=9).…”