The Deputy Minister,
Director-General,
Deans of our Medical Schools,
Ladies and gentlemen of the media.
First of all I would like to thank all colleagues who have put in long hours and have worked tirelessly in making sure that the launch of the Academy for Leadership and Management in Health Care is a success. Your contribution in the build-up of this launch is extremely appreciated.
I’m delighted to see so many of my colleagues here today to recognise the official birth of this Academy which is a concerted effort to ensure excellence and the successful implementation of the goals set in the Human Resources for Health Strategy for the health sector. Today is also a fitting tribute to those who have worked so hard to make this day a reality – both those within the department and those across the healthcare science profession and professional bodies especially the people who were part of the transitional arrangements.
The main purpose of the Academy is to address skills gaps at all levels, including clinical and hospital management.
From my time as a medical practitioner and subsequently as Minister of Health in the public service, together executive leadership of the National Department of Health, I have seen and recognised the need for an overarching human resource in the health sector workforce – and on professional education, training and regulatory matters.
This is why I am pleased to be in a position to bring effort and resources to sponsor and support the formation of the Academy in the run-up to its birth and into its formative stages.
As I speak here today, I feel like a combination of the midwife, godmother and proud family member the Academy. We have clearly set out the role of the Academy, and the work ahead, and outlined both the challenges and the opportunities.
The health scientific workforce is a profession that is rich in its diversity – with more than many different specialist professional groupings recognised within it.
At a time of conception of this Academy, we needed to ensure clear understanding and recognition of the three common aspects of the healthcare science profession that make it unique.
- Firstly - the importance of the profession as a cornerstone of almost every patient pathway, with 80% of all diagnoses attributed to their work
- Secondly - the crucial role of healthcare human resources in improving outcomes for patients and the public, constantly evaluating practice to stay at the cutting edge - and in driving a greater understanding of how science underpins healthcare
- Finally - the central role that public healthcare plays in the general health of all citizens of our country.
The ability to come together, to work together and to stay together within the Academy will be crucial in building and developing strong professional partnerships with the Department of Health and the new organisations in the health and social care landscape our country – and also with the arrangements in each of the other countries of the African Continent.
We all recognise the excellent, committed and unstinting work that has been done - and continues to be done - by the individual professional bodies and societies in our sector. This work has enabled the Academy to develop an innovative new approach to stakeholder involvement and engagement within an overarching ‘one voice’ professional organisation – an organisation that will have many similarities – as well as important differences – to other such overarching representative professional bodies elsewhere in healthcare.
I hope this historic event is signal to the importance of the Academy as a partnership between the public and private sector in the National Health Insurance (NHI) as a plan for ensuring that healthcare scientists can share their collective scientific wisdom, knowledge and experience with a wider society through the ‘thought leadership’ plans.
The Academy will be an organisation that will need to be influential in shaping healthcare science, scientific services and the education and training of this extraordinary workforce into the future.
I’m aware that a number of colleagues who would have liked to have been here today are already doing the job of influencing – at an important scenario planning meeting on clinical advice for the NHI.
I’m particularly glad to see how effectively you’ve brought together so many of the leaders from across healthcare science, across the health system in South Africa.
The launch of the Academy is a move towards overhauling the health system in South Africa. The South African health system cannot run without high quality management and
leadership.
The Academy will focus on among others, the following strategic tasks:
- Develop a national management and leadership competence framework for the health sector based on a needs analysis;
- Undertake a competency assessment of key post holders (using existing assessments such as DBSA) and develop a ‘gap analysis’ for leadership and management development and strategy to address weaknesses;
- Develop an inventory of health leadership and management training capacity within and outside the health sector;
- Define training and development interventions/ programme requirements for leadership and management for the health sector, for in-service training and HEI professional/career training;
- Accredit providers and commission providers which can offer training in management and leadership for the health sector (these should include HEI’s, private institutions and organisations, international HEI’s and organisations);
- Ensure competency requirements are implemented for appointments to leadership and management positions in the health sector; and
- Monitor the outcome and impact of commissioned in-service training and career programmes offered through HEI’s and other training service providers.
Let me take this moment to announce members of the Advisory Committee for the Academy led by Professor Marian Jacobs, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town.
They are:
- Lord Nigel Crisp, Member of the House of Lords, UK
- Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba, Executive Director for Discovery Health
- Prof Eric Buch, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences in the University of Pretoria
- Prof Noddy Jinabhai, University of KwaZulu-Natal
- Prof Davide Croce, Director Carlo Cattaneo University Castellanza in Italy
- Dr Brigalia Bam, the former Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission, and now the Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches
- Dr Zola Njongwe, University of Johannesburg
- Prof Lucy Gilson, University of Cape Town School of Public Health and Family Medicine, and Health Policy and Systems
- Prof Zephne van der Spuy, University of Cape Town Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Head of Postgraduate Education and Research
- Mr Michael Sinclair, Harvard University in Boston, USA
- Prof Craig Keith Househam, Western Cape Government, Head of Health for Provincial Government
- Dr Bob Fryatt, Senior Advisor from DFID
- Dr Brigid Stracham, Secretariate, Department of Health
We have a proud tradition of people and organisations who have spoken out for healthcare science over many decades. Our professional bodies are the people who have driven the healthcare science profession – and the science that underpins our work - to the standards that we have envisaged:
- This Academy has to work hard to develop acumen, professionalism and gravitas.
- It has to develop education, training and professional standards in their respective fields to drive forward scientific practice and evidence-based, patient-oriented services suitable for the NHI.
- It has developed systems for assessment and regulation that provide assurance for standards and safety alike.
- In many ways we see this Academy as a gigantic step in the implementation of NHI.
If I am to offer any advice for the Academy at this stage – and the team that is going to manage it – then perhaps I can offer the words of Sir Isaac Newton, acclaimed as the greatest scientist who ever lived. He said ‘If I have seen further, then it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’
I am sure that the Advisory Committee has taken its responsibility to heart. It is a challenging job, but none the less important in creating and ensuring that healthcare science speaks out as a single collective professional voice.
It is so important, like never before, to speak out about the skills, experience and vital role that this profession plays and sharing that with those who want to further improve the country’s health and wealth - and outcomes for patients and the public.
May I therefore, ladies and gentlemen, wish the Academy the very best for the future.
Enquiries:
Joe Maila
Ministry of Health: Spokesperson
Cell: 082 887 3581
Popo Maja
Department of Health: Spokesperson
Cell: 082 373 1169
