This document discusses health planning and its importance. It defines planning as setting goals, strategies, and schedules to accomplish goals. Health planning is part of national planning and is needed to efficiently use resources to improve health services. The planning cycle involves analyzing the health situation, establishing objectives and goals, assessing resources, setting priorities, formulating plans, programming and implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. The overall goal of health planning is rapid and balanced development to meet community health needs through optimal resource utilization.

1. Health Planning
Dr Utpal Sharma
Assistant professor
Dept. of Community Medicine
SMIMS, GANGTOK.

2. Planning is for tomorrow….
Management is for today
WHAT IS PLANNING?
The process of …..
Setting goals,
Developing strategies and…..
Outlining tasks and schedules to accomplish the
goals.
Planning is deciding in advance what to do,
how to do and who is to do it.

3. Cont….
It bridges the gap between where we are to,
where we want to go.
It makes possible things to occur which would
not otherwise occur.
Purpose of planning are…..
Match the limited resources with problems
Eliminate wasteful expenditure or its duplication
Develop best course of action to achieve the
objectives

4. Cont….
Plan formulation
Execution
Evaluation
Planning in the broadest sense
includes three steps…

5. Development
planning
The purpose of National Planning is to achieve a
rapid, balanced, economic and social development of
the country as a whole.
Health planning is a part of National planning and it
is required for the economic utilization of…..
Material,
Manpower and….
Financial resources for improving the health services.

6. National Health Planning
Definition: The orderly process of -
Defining community health problems,
Identifying unmet needs
Surveying the resources to meet them,
Establishing priority goals that are realistic and
feasible and
Projecting administrative action to accomplish
the purpose of the proposed programme.

7. Health needs and
Demands
Health needs: Deficiencies in health that call
for preventive, curative, control or eradication
measures.
Some needs are well perceived by the
community, some are vaguely perceived while
some needs are perceived by the policy
makers and not by the community.

8. Resources
The manpower,
Money,
Materials,
Skills,
Knowledge and techniques and…
Time needed or available for the performance
or support of action directed towards
specified objectives

9. Planning – end result
OBJECTIVE: It is a precise point to be achieved
following the implementation of a development
proposal/plan.
 It may or may not be achieved and is the end-point of
all activities.
TARGET: It is a discrete activity that is to be fulfilled in
order to achieve the objective.
 It indicates the degree of achievement of the
objectives.
 Objectives are concerned with the problems directly
while the target is concerned with the factors
influencing the problem

10. Cont….
GOAL: The ultimate desired state towards which
objectives and resources are directed. It may be
described in terms of –
What is to be attained?
The extent to which it is to be attained;
The population or section of environment involved.
The geographic area in which the proposed programme
will operate; and
The proposed length of time required.
Unlike objectives and targets it has no time constraints,
resource limitation or necessarily attainable

11. How the goals should be???....

12. Elements of a plan
 OBJECTIVES….
 POLICIES….
 PROGRAMMES…
 SCHEDULES &…
 BUDGET

13. Programme
It is a sequence of activities designed to
implement policies and accomplish objectives.
Step by step approach to guide the action
necessary to reach a predetermined goal.
It requires close integration with the
objectives.

14. Cont…
SCHEDULE: It is the time sequence for the
work to be done.
PROCEDURES: It is the set of rules for carrying
out work which when observed by all will help
ensure maximum utilization of resources and
efforts.
POLICIES: These are a set of guiding principles
for carrying out a work and not rigid
commandments.

15. Schedule…. (Gantt chart)
Sl. No Activities Jul15 Aug 15 Sep 15 Oct15 Nov 15 Dec 15 Jan 15 Feb 16 Mar 16 Apr 16
1. Index case
finding
locating
address
2. Staff
recruitme
nt
3. Pretesting
4. Data
collection
and data
entry
5. Analysis
(Interim)
6. Analysis ,
validation
and report
writing

16. Pre-planning
It is the preparation of planning with
preconditions of…
Government interest: strong “political will”
Administrative capacity for proper coordination
of activities and implementation of plans
Legislation: policies translated to legislation
Organization for planning: eg planning
commission
G
A
L
O

17. Planning cycle

18. 19
Planning cycle….in a nutshell
Policy
‘where are we now”
HNA
Where to go
• Needs
• Evidence
• Resources
• Public opinion
How to do it
Monitoring and Evaluation

19. 20
Planning cycle
1. Analysis of the health situation
a) Population statistics
b) Statistics of morbidity and mortality
c) Manpower (HR)
d) Existing medical care facilities
e) Geographical distribution and epidemiology
f) Training facilities available
g) Attitudes and beliefs
S
M
E
G
T
A

20. 21
2. Establishment of objectives and goals
a) Should be established at all levels
b) It should be set by a person having authority.
c) The goal should be realistic.
d) It should be specific.
e) Acceptability
f) Easily measurable
Cont…
*Objectives are not only guide to action but yardstick to
measure the work after it is done

21. 22
3. Assessment of resources
a) Manpower
b) Money
c) Materials
d) Skills and knowledge
e) Technical needs
Cont…
*A balance should be struck between requirements
and availability

22. 23
4. Fixing priorities
 What determines priorities?
Alternate plans developed….
5. Write formulated plans
a) Must be complete in all respect to execute
the project
b) Detailed detecting input and output
c) Contained working guidance for execution
d) Evaluation should be built in
Cont…

23. 24
6. Programming and implantation
a) Assign and fix responsibilities
b) Define roles and tasks
c) Selection, training, motivation and supervision
d) Organization and communication
e) Efficiency of health institutions
Cont…

24. 25
7. Monitoring
 Continuous process of observing, recording
and reporting on the activities of the
organization or project
8. Evaluation
Measures the degree to which objectives and
targets are fulfilled and the quality of results
obtained
Cont…

25. 26
Dictated by
Central policies
National policies
Local health need (HNA)
Man power
Pressure
– Local
– National
– Political

26. 27
So you see…no
planning no
development……..
thank you