NCOP
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO. 669
DATE OF PUBLICATION IN INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 02 December 2011
(INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO. 40)
Mrs B L Abrahams (DA-Gauteng) to ask the Minister of Health:
(1) Whether, with reference to his reply to question 2684 in the National
Assembly on 14 November 2011, the National Core Standards (NCS) (a)
have been scientifically validated and (b) were found to be effective;
if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, how does these
standards measure up to international standards;
(2) whether public health establishments have been properly and
adequately trained to assess themselves against the NCS; if not, why
not; if so, what study has been carried out to evaluate the accuracy
of the self-assessments conducted by each province;
(3) whether the user-friendliness of the NCS has been assessed; if not,
what is the position in this regard; if so, what feedback has been
received from the facilities that are using the NCS?
CW832E
REPLY:
1) The assessment tool for the National Core Standards has been (a)
tested in relation to inter-observer reliability and (b) has been
assessed qualitatively to be effective in terms of efforts to improve
quality of care. While improvements are constantly being made and
feedback we have received indicates that we are in line with
international standards, the process of formal validation will be
undertaken once standards have been prescribed in regulation in
accordance with the Amendment Bill and have been consulted on and
approved.
2) Extensive training of trainers has taken place to enable
identification of gaps through self-assessment but without any
intention to use these results further; the accuracy of such self-
assessments will only be ascertained in the course of the external
inspections.
3) The user-friendliness of the NCS assessment tool has been assessed
through a wide process of feedback form the users and their reports
and suggestions are being fed back into an improved version of the
tool. The standards themselves appear to have only minor problems
which do not justify major changes in the short term.
END.