Minister of Health, Hon. Horace Dalley on Thursday (November 12, 2015) issued a Ministerial Directive to the Boards of Management of the Regional Health Authorities and Regional Directors to ensure timely and appropriate reporting to the Ministry of Health.
The Ministerial Directive requires the Regional Health Authorities to provide status, progress and adverse reports to the Honourable Minister of Health through the Permanent Secretary or Chief Medical Officer as required including;
- Untoward incidents as described in the Service Level Agreements;
- Implementation of recommendations from the recent audit of the Regional Health Authorities;
- Monitoring of Maternity, Operating Theatre, Neonatology Units; Intensive care Units, Accident and Emergency Departments (MONIA) indicators;
- Ongoing Risk Assessment and Risk Report on the MONIA areas;
The Chairmen of the Board of the RHAs also signed the new Service Level Agreements for the period 2015-2018 at the offices of the Ministry of Health, 10-16 Grenada Way, Kingston 5.
The SLAs are performance contracts between the Ministry of Health and the Regional Health Authorities and are reviewed and updated annually over the three year life of the contract. However, the performance of the RHAs will be formally reviewed on a quarterly basis through joint meetings on mutually agreed dates.
The Service Level Agreements are to ensure the balanced provision of quality services within the context of available resources to the residents and referred population of the RHAs by focusing on their priority health needs; setting targets for improvement in key areas of performance and quality; ensuring that health service resources are well-managed and that the best value for money is obtained; setting out the responsibilities of the Ministry of Health and RHAs in achieving their agreed targets; and ensuring good governance of the health services.