Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi is expected to officially unveil the Albertina Sisulu Executive Leadership Programme in Health (ASELPH) which aims to strengthen health policy transformation and service excellence in South Africa.

The ASELPH launch, which will take place on Thursday at Fountains Hotel and Conference Centre in Cape Town, will be attended by members of the Sisulu family.

“ASELPH specifically aims to strengthen human resources capacity in the health system needed to deliver high quality, cost-efficient services through strengthened, executive-level training of health leaders and managers,” the Department of Health said in a statement.

The programme is founded by a partnership including the University of Pretoria, University of Fort Hare, Harvard University represented by Harvard School of Public Health and South Africa Partners in collaboration with the South African National and Provincial Departments of Health.

The department said the ASELPH is seen as a local ‘flagship programme’ capable of setting the standard for executive level health leadership and management training in South Africa.

In addition, ASELPH organises and hosts university forums, policy seminars and round tables to address key policy debates, as identified by the National Department of Health and focus on issues that will present the greatest challenges to implementation.

“ASELPH also utilises new teaching and learning strategies: each new training offering, its curricula, and pedagogical strategies and teaching materials (including case studies and exercises), are based on collaborative research that identifies information gaps and produces learning objectives,” the department said.

ASELPH is responsive to emerging initiatives in the South African health sector through a combination of strategies that include:

• Targeted training of executive, district and hospital managers who are responsible for services related to the National Health Insurance Initiative (NHI);
• Strengthened management capability of current and emerging, district, health-related leaders who are responsible for the implementation of the NHI and the re-engineering of the Primary Health Care system. It notes that these District Health Managers will take on the role as accounting officers who can hire and fire staff as well as have the authorization to procure all services delegated by the District Health Authority; and
• Advancement of sustainable, relevant, educational and training capacity for health executives responsible for the management of large public health programmes such as HIV, STIs and TB.
• The event on Thursday will be followed by a Policy Seminar on the NHI.