Foundation drives Nigeria’s project on inter-professional harmony

Patient Safety Group of the Consumer Safety Foundation (CSF-PSG) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) has commenced the Nigerian Programme on Healthcare Inter-professional Collaborative Practice (NPHICP).

NPHICP is a non-governmental innovative strategy for unifying the stakeholders in healthcare to achieve the advancement of teamwork and industrial harmony in Nigeria’s health sector towards strengthening the health system.

CSF is a not-for-profit organization for promoting health and safety of consumers and product quality through multi-sectorial collaborations towards nation building and development. The Corporate Affairs Commission, Federal Republic of Nigeria, under Part C of the Company and Allied Matters Act, No 1 of 1990, incorporated it in 2015.

PSG is a working group of the foundation, which focuses on the improvement of patient safety and healthcare quality.NPHICP is a sequence of interrelated, people-oriented and practical activities which will: bring together and engage all (cross-sectorial) stakeholders in healthcare; form a nexus for inter-professional and inter-disciplinary co-operation and collaboration; harness unifying shared factors, values and goals that bind healthcare workers together; ignite good working attitude among the healthcare workers; and cultivate efficient utilization of resources in the health sector.

Consultant Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon and Programme Director (Operations), CSF, Nigeria, Dr. Charles Uzodimma, told The Guardian that Nigeria healthcare system, as a complex system of human elements, is faced with various problems: severe shortage and unfair distribution of healthcare professionals; intra- and inter-professional conflicts; incessant strikes; poor attitude to work; patients’ non-participation in health care plan; poor healthcare financing; inappropriate use of the scarce resources; deplorable healthcare services and outcomes; scanty health information system and database; and loss of confidence in the healthcare system.

The consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon said the global health community found that the central technique to address these complex challenges is by ‘human elements of the system’ working together for the ‘whole system success’. This involves Inter-professional Collaborative Practice.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Healthcare Inter-professional Collaborative Practice (HICP) is when multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds, provide comprehensive services by working together with patients, their families, care-givers, and communities to deliver the highest quality of care across settings.

Programme Director (Administration & Corporate Services), Emmanuel Oriakhi, said in line with WHO Framework for Actions on inter-professional education and collaborative practice, 2010; this program is a sequence of interrelated, people-oriented and practical interventions which will: bring together and engage all (cross-sectorial) stakeholders in healthcare; harness unifying shared factors, values and goals that bind healthcare workers together; ignite good working attitude among healthcare workers; and cultivate efficient utilization of resources in the health sector.

Oriakhi said CSF-PSG would accomplish the task by ensuring that the programme: earns the confidence of the stakeholders in healthcare; and seeks solutions through the power of consensus and moral force among the stakeholders.

He said the programme is aimed at achieving Ten-Point Agenda:
*Teamwork among healthcare personnel;
*Establishment and preservation of collective rights and welfare for healthcare workers;
*Minimized strikes and optimized productivity in health sector with industrial harmony;
*Patient-centered healthcare that is professional, family, and community sensitive;
*Enhanced health consumers’ consciousness, rights and responsibilities to safe and quality healthcare;
*Strengthened health system;
*Better healthcare user experience;
*Positive healthcare outcomes with prevention of avoidable deaths;
*National Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goals;
*Improved health information system and database.