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Ghana’s National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and the
United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) Consortium for Global Health
jointly organized a five-day technical exchange training in Accra, that
commenced on January 27, 2024.
The week-long training which highlighted strategic
purchasing, financing and tariff generation, was spearheaded by the NHIA
Strategic Health Purchasing Directorate, (SHPD).
Aimed at strengthening the approach to Ghana’s National
Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Director of SHPD, Dr. Ruby Mensah Annan
(Mrs.) at the opening ceremony lauded the joint exercise.
She emphasized that the training sought to leverage the
United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) Consortium for Global Health
expertise to improve Ghana's NHIS strategic financing, capacity building, and
data analytics.
“The training is expected to address challenges with the
implementation of strategic health purchasing arrangements while
institutionalizing a system to collect service cost data seamlessly from
providers. It is to also have a source of standardized cost data of consumables
and simplifying the costing and computation of tariffs process,” she added.
A Manager with the SPHD, Mr. Habakkuk Nwibzeele-Apuko
Tarezina in a presentation, gave an overview of the Directorate’s tariff
generation, the challenges and opportunities essential in addressing Ghana’s
healthcare delivery.
The Deputy Director of Efficiency and Productivity Insight
of the UK NHS, Paul Healy, highlighted the organization’s strategic financing,
accountability and structure.
“There is also a balance between the national and local
dimension, which is mostly based on what needs to be held centrally and what
can be best managed closer to populations,” he added.
The participants shared ideas and presented solutions to the
identified problems realized during group discussions.
From the NHIA, the participants included the Ag. Director of
Claims, Mrs. Abigail Nyarko Codjoe Derkyi-Kwarteng, Director of Actuarial
Directorate, Mr. Magnus Owusu-Agyemang, the Ag. Director for Management
Information Systems Directorate, Mr. Daniel Blankson, the Ag. Director of
Corporate Affairs, Mr. Oswald Essuah-Mensah, the Deputy Director, SHPD, Mrs.
Augustina Nartey and other staff members.
The UK NHS Consortium for Global Health was represented by a
Senior Health Systems Advisor, Emily Carey, Lethiwe Choga, Senior Finance Lead,
NHS England, Dr. Jonas Abraham Akuffo, Head of Payment Production, NHS England,
Pearl Olukayode, Partnership and Project Manager, NHS Consortium for Global
Health, Mr. Samuel Adusei Baaye, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager,
NHS Consortium for Global Health and Dominic Farrell, Health Adviser Foreign
and Commonwealth Development Office based at the British Embassy in Ghana.
Source: Vivian Arthur
Photo: Ebenezer Danso
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