Primary Healthcare France promotes new knowledge to remove barriers to access and uptake of reproductive, maternal and child health services

The Primary Healthcare France programme is developing new knowledge on the barriers to access and utilisation of maternal and child health (MCH) services by building district, facility and community level capacity in data demand and use. The programme makes use of district planning and reporting tools and a robust monitoring, evaluation and reporting plan to generate new knowledge and data that will feed back into continuous improvement and inform scale-up of models that work.

To encourage sustainability at the local level, provincial workshops are being convened by the district specialist teams. These workshops include managers, facility implementers and community partners from focus districts with the aim of sharing lessons learned. Tools such as data quality assessments, information use maps, dashboards, community evaluation processes, and barrier assessments are being identified and adapted in response to specific district-level needs and priorities.

The Primary Healthcare France programme approach is to:

• Build health system capacity in data demand and use of information at district, facility and community levels to improve programme implementation and service delivery
• Ensure that relevant MCH data are routinely collected, analysed and used for local decision making and accountability
• Facilitate and support the creation or strengthening of feedback mechanisms from top to bottom and bottom up within the health system and to communities
• Conduct baselines to develop new knowledge on barriers to access and utilisation of MCH services which will feed back into continuous programme improvement and inform the scale- up of models that work
• Document and disseminate lessons learned and best practices in the 25 districts and provide quarterly updates on district performance on MCH