Empowering regional mentors to strengthen healthcare on a national scale in Ghana
Four years ago, Ghana moved to create six new regions, presenting a unique opportunity to improve public access to services, including healthcare, by decentralising service delivery and establishing new regional administrations.
However, building effective health services in new regions that are still largely rural is a mammoth task. It demands investment, not only in infrastructure, logistics, and systems, but also in the leadership and management skills of the people responsible for administering the health system within these areas.
Recognising these crucial building blocks, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) partnered with AMP Health to support leadership and management capability development for the newly established Regional Health Management Teams (RHMTs), which are responsible for health services in the six new regions.
Our interactions with ministries of health throughout Africa have demonstrated a significant need for investing in leadership and management at the sub-national level of health systems, even more so when teams are new, in order to succeed in expanding public access to health services.
Under this new partnership, AMP aims to support the GHS to establish an approach that has the potential to simultaneously drive health system strengthening efforts on a sub-national level, while contributing to the institutionalisation of leadership and management capacity building at a national level. The lessons from this partnership will inform the way that the GHS approaches the development of leadership and management skills, and guide the government’s approach to building teams and developing leaders throughout the health system.
Working with regional mentors
Along with the establishment of new RHMTs, the GHS has assigned a regional mentor to each of the new regions to provide capacity building support within the new RHMTs. Working with a group of local mentors - senior public health officials who have worked in various capacities of leadership in the Ghana Health Service - means that they have deep knowledge of the local context and understand what is required to effectively integrate these new regions into the national system.
“The mentors leverage their professional knowledge, experience and expertise combined with their coaching skills to empower the Regional Directors and their teams to make strategic decisions and to find solutions to the complex issues the regions encounter.”
Six months into the project, a strong foundation has already been laid, following a three-day training session to help mentors develop their mentoring and coaching skills. “Equipping the mentors with these skills and tools at the beginning of the project was crucial to its effective implementation,” says Ronke. The mentors have also completed their initial diagnostic assessment to identify the leadership and management needs within each team.
Based on the outcome of the assessment, an action plan was developed to address the gaps identified, and mentors have been providing monthly remote support and guidance to their mentees over the last few months.
Ronke is heartened by early feedback from the mentees, one of whom says, “The mentoring is going smoothly. I feel very fortunate to have a mentor who has lived the experience of the GHS leadership at all levels.”