The main areas of focus of NMPC subdivision are;
a) Medicines selection
NMPC subdivision ensures that appropriate medicine selection in Namibia is effected by updating the Namibia medicines list (Nemlist). This is achieved by evaluating motivations for changes from health care providers and incorporating the changes adopted by the EML committee and approved by the Policy, Management Development and Review Committee (PMDRC) into the Nemlist.
b) Rational medicines use
This entails promotion of appropriate medicines prescribing, dispensing and use by healthcare workers and patients. Therapeutics Committees (TCs) are considered as suitable vehicles for implementing activities and interventions aimed at improving rational use of medicines. The sub-division NMPC and selected TCs in collaboration with partners such as Management Sciences for health conducts Medicine Use Reviews (MUR) to identify potential medicine use problems and formulate suitable interventions to remedy problems identified. ABC analysis of pharmaceutical expenditure is often a starting point in identifying potential medicines that require an in-depth MUR.
c) Pharmacy Management Information Systems (PMIS)
The PMIS is an indicator based system used to monitor four broad output areas in the provision of pharmaceutical services namely: Stock management & item availability, quality of care, human resource development & workload and medicine financing. Data is collected at district facilities and sent to the regional pharmacists who aggregate and analyse the data and write a feedback report recommending suitable actions to improve performance.
The regional pharmacists also send an aggregated regional report to the sub-division NMPC where all the regions’ reports are aggregated and analysed. NMPC then sends a feedback report to all the regions and this serves to, among other purposes, spread lessons learnt from one region to another.
d) Human resource management and development
NMPC identifies pharmacy stuff needs in the public facilities and in collaboration with development partners conduct interviews, induction of new recruits and coordinates distribution of pharmacy staff to provide services in public health facilities. This ensures adequate and equitable distribution of the pharmacy based human resource especially the ones that are seconded to work for the Ministry by the development partners. NMPC subdivision also coordinates training of the pharmacy stuff working in public hospitals and also supports development of the teaching curriculum at the National Health Training Institute (NHTC).
e) ARV medicines tracking and planning services
With the help of the development partners, NMPC has rolled out the Antiretroviral Medicines Dispensing Tool (ADT) that is used to capture patient information, medication usage data and also enhance inventory control. Specific data on patient information and ARV stock status is reported by all the facilities offering antiretroviral therapy (ART) services to the national level and the information generated from the database created is used extensively in HIV/AIDS programme management. ADT data has proved invaluable in abstraction of data for Early Warning Indicators of HIV Drug Resistance .
f) Supervision, monitoring and evaluation
Besides the use of the PMIS to monitor and evaluate pharmaceutical services, the NMPC subdivision supports the regions to conduct support supervisory visits. In 2007 Division: Pharmaceutical Services and MSH/SPS committed to provide technical and financial support to Regional Pharmacists for Supervisory visits undertaken in the 13 Regions in Namibia. The visits were to be carried out in all 35 ART sites spread across the 13 regions in Namibia, as well as at least one Primary Health Care (PHC) facility per District.
The Regional Pharmacists conduct at least 2 rounds of visits in their respective region in any Financial Year. Plans and reports for the visits are forwarded to NMPC prior to undertaking any visit. These visits to the facilities play a key role in assessing pharmaceutical services at the facility level and also to evaluate initiatives made by the division. Ultimately, service level is improved and services streamlined to the desired level.
g) National Medicines Policy and National Pharmaceutical Master Plan
The National Medicine Policy for Namibia provides comprehensive guidelines and development objectives for the Namibian public and private pharmaceutical sectors within the broader framework of the Government’s health policy and development plans. In line with WHO recommendations on national drug policies, and considering particular Namibian needs.
The National Pharmaceutical master Plan is document that facilitates and ensures the implementation of the strategies defined in the National Medicines Policy, which aim at reaching the specified development goals of the private and public pharmaceutical sector in Namibia.