Policy Brief No. 48 of 2018-2019 on An Assessment of Health Care Delivery Under Devolution: County Briefs

Abstract

Quality health care is a basic right in Kenya as granted by the 2010 Constitution. It is also a priority government commitment under the “Big Four” agenda on Universal Health Care (UHC) and Vision 2030. Devolution of the health sector granted county governments the opportunity to design health care delivery interventions to tackle county-specific health challenges. Counties are also charged with the responsibility of coordinating and managing the delivery of primary health care services, including promotion of primary health care, public health and sanitation, disease surveillance and response among others. The 2010 Constitution also requires the public to be involved in county planning and budgeting to enhance the relevance of the services delivered in respective counties. To this end, the County Health Briefs (2018) provide data and information on the status of health across counties, and are instrumental in enabling each county develop county specific strategies and interventions to improve health outcomes. The data and information used in preparation of the briefs was obtained from the KIPPRA study on “An Assessment of Health Delivery under Devolution (2017)” that aimed at evaluating the changes brought about by key policy reforms on delivery and uptake of health care services in the country since the accession to devolution in 2013. The study survey captured information on availability of health inputs (human, capital, commodities) in primary health care facilities and estimated health service delivery indices. Additional data was obtained from secondary data sources.