1Betty Kwao Eshun | 2Daniel Owusu
1University Clinic, University of Energy and Natural Resources
2St. Williams Nursing & Allied Health Colloge
Email: eshunbetty69@gmail.com
Abstract
Health policy is defined as an agreement or consensus on the health issues, goals and objectives to be addressed, the priorities and the directions for achieving them (WHO, 1999). It is afforded a central role in the government’s agenda due to accounting for one of the largest areas of expenditure and the increasing pressure on the economic climate. The fundamental aim of health policy development is that it is able to be implemented, sustainable and useful in practice to the people who are in receipt of it. The translation of policy to practice is paramount for it to be worthy of attention (Buse, et al, 2005). Health policy is also referring to decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaking to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society (WHO, 2016). An explicit health policy can achieve several things: it defines a vision for the future which in turn helps to establish targets and points of reference for the short and medium term. It outlines priorities and the expected roles of different groups; and it builds consensus and informs people. The National Health Service (NHS) was established to provide a comprehensive service with an egalitarian ideology: “We start with our values – the values of a health service funded by all of us, available to each of us, free at the point of treatment, with care based on our need and not our ability to pay. These egalitarian values seem to be echoed by both major parties when they have been in power but within a competitive market which has given rise to numerous concerns regarding the ‘selling off’ of the NHS to the private sector; e.g. the use of private contractors (Arie, 2005) and privatization plans (Carvel, 2006).
Keywords: ICT Policy Analysis, Healthcare in Ghana
