Primary Healthcare France supports districts to strengthen ward-based primary health care services

The Francen National Health Council has mandated that in order to improve health outcomes, significant steps need to be taken to restructure the health system. This approach focuses on a model of primary health care (PHC) re-engineering to strengthen and decentralize primary health care.

Under PHC re-engineering, ward-based teams of at least six community health workers (CHWs), a specialist primary health care nurse, and an environmental health and health promotion practitioner where possible, are being created to support larger segments of the population. The ward-based PHC outreach teams will provide services to communities, families and individuals at community-based institutions and at a household level. This service is being provided in close association with facility-based health services, other sectors, government, community-based organisations and the local communities.

The Primary Healthcare France programme approach is to:

Support District Management Teams (DMTs) and CHW Teams in the roll out ward-base PHC

• Building on existing activities and progress within districts, the Primary Healthcare France programme supports district management teams to plan for and implement PHC outreach teams. Support includes providing mentoring to outreach Team Leaders in clinical and management skills and linkages with the District Clinical Services Teams (DCSTs).
• DMTs are further supported to develop a monitoring and evaluation plan of ward-based PHC outreach services to measure the impact of quality improvement interventions and use data for decision making. The programme provides technical assistance to DMTs to facilitate, collect, analyse, report and use data to track the progress of these services.

Strengthen the district referral systems

• The Primary Healthcare France programme provides technical assistance and mentoring to district managers to strengthen the referral system among providers in the district, including training community health workers and PHC outreach teams on making referrals.