ISLAMABAD: A workshop was held here on Friday for improving quality of primary healthcare in Charsadda district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Community Uplift Programme (CUP) Pakistan, an NGO, organised the ‘Inception Workshop’, which is part of a DFID-funded & Palladium Pakistan-managed project titled ‘Community Score Card (CSC) for improvement in the quality of primary healthcare’ in the said district.

Dr Parwaiz Kamal, Director General Health of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was the chief guest at the event held at a local hotel, according to a press release.

The interest shown by elected representatives at the provincial and local level in the citizen-inclusive project that aims to hold public health services accountable, was overwhelming, according to the organisers. Arshad Khan Umarzai, minister for technical education, Anisazeb Tahirkheli, minister for labour and minerals, MPA Khalid Khan, Fahad Khan Utmanzai, the District Nazim of Charsadda, were among those who attended the workshop.

Introducing the project, Iftikhar ur Rahman, the chief executive of CUP, shared a snapshot of a 10-month pilot project implemented in Peshawar district from April 2015 to Feb 2016 that documented significant improvements in primary healthcare service delivery through CSC model that basically is a performance scoring exercise by the community in the catchment area of a health facility and also a self-evaluation scoring by the health facility staff of its services against similar performance indicators.

On the occasion, Dr Parwaiz Kamal stated that the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was fully aware that the road to citizen prosperity and wellbeing lied in citizen-inclusive planning, budgeting and service delivery systems. It was for this reason that the provincial government had made a paradigm shift to include citizen oversight and feedback as the cornerstone in all development and service delivery for improvement in quality of healthcare services.

Anisazeb Taherkheli appreciated the innovation of CSC and emphasised on DFID for extending the project to all districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She said the provincial government would fully support the project so that primary healthcare could made significant improvements.

Later, an open discussion was held in which the lead community activists (male and female) shared their success stories. This was followed by a question-answer session.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2016