Assessment 1
A written report of a country plan review
As an international consultant in Health Planning, you have been an assignment by the Government of Australia to review the Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) of Muteu Country for the year 2011-2016. Muteu is a developing country and heavily depends external funding for health financing. The Government of Australia has agreed to provide technical and financial support for developing a new Health Sector Plan for the country of Muteu. Before the Ministry of Health in Muteu can develop the new strategic plan, The Australian Government in collaboration with Government of Muteu would like the current HSSP to be reviewed and evaluated as a basis for the next HSSP.
The first part of your assignment in this role is to critically review Muteu’s HSSP (see the document as provided) and identify areas that need to be improved in the next planning process. You are asked to write a report of this plan review which should respond to the tasks as outlined in your Terms Of Conditions for your contract as an external consultant with the Australian Government. Below is a suggestion of key areas and questions that need to be addressed in your report;
1. Using a SWOT analysis tool, analyse the Muteu planning context and identify three major health system capacity concerns for developing and implementing the next HSSP. Discuss their potential implication on the next HSSP and provide suggestions of how these might be addressed. Use a SWOT analysis matrix to summarize the factors that define the Muteu’s health planning context. Discuss your SWOT analysis emphasizing the potential implications of the three main contextual factors.
2. Looking at the disease burden and statistics for health conditions for Muteu, what should be the three-key priority population health issues or needs to be addressed in the next plan? Provide evidence and rationale for your recommendations in this regard.
- Using a tree analysis or problem analysis tool or decision analysis, or mind mapping, identify the underlying causes of the three main population health issues which you have identified as priorities for next Muteu’s health plan.
- Based on your problem analysis, what should be the overall goal for the next Muteu’s Health plan? The overall goal should follow the SMART principles in developing goals and objectives.
- Based on your problem analysis, use a flip method to develop three (3) SMART objectives and three (3) strategies that need to be implemented for each objective. You may need to use a table and text to explain the table for this section.
- Present a stakeholder analysis matrix of the key stakeholders that the Ministry of Muteu needs to engage with and involve in the next planning process and discuss why. The relevance of the stakeholders should be related to the health issues which you are recommending as priorities for Muteu’s next plan.
- Last but not least, justify why and advise how the next Muteu health plan should address the core health planning principles to demonstrate a population’s health planning approach.
- Finally, advise the Australian government, what sort of support is needed to strengthen the capacity of the Muteu’s health system in developing and implementing the next health plan. You may need to draw SWOT analysis for this section and related that to the rest of your findings.
A Note in relation to the case study:
When you get to read the provided health sector plan, you will realise that I have removed some sections of the original plan and used a pseudo country name for confidentiality purposes. It is important that you read the case study as soon as you can so that you have enough time to seek clarification if you require additional information or explanation or any other support to complete your first assignment. Be warned that the provided health sector plan is a big document (close to 38 pages with lots of tables and some empty pages). Start getting to understand its context and main issues as soon as you can, do not wait until the last minute! At the same time, do not be overwhelmed with the size of the document, for purposes of the assignment, you will only get to read bits and pieces of information and not the whole document
The trick to getting this assignment right is to have a good grip of the ideal health planning which we are learning in this Unit. Only then, you can be able to see the flaws in the provided health sector plan and think of ways of how it can be improved.
Your report should at least include the following information and headings:
Cover page
The title of the report, information about the author, to whom the report is being submitted.
Introduction
- Briefly, describe the basis or background of this report, for example, answer the question why are you reviewing the Muteu’s Health sector plan
- Present and explain the framework which you are using for analysing Muteu’s HSSP. Provide a justification why countries need to adopt that framework for health planning.
- Provide the structure of your report
The body
Present and discuss your key findings using subtitles that reflect that you have addressed all the tasks as outlined under the suggested areas and questions that the report should address.
Conclusion
Drawing on you main findings for each task, provide a summary of your key messages and recommendations.
References
• Reference any sources of information which you have used to support your arguments in your review.