Call for submissions for good practices c/o HIFA

Share your good practice and help strengthen the health system

The Health Systems Trust (HST) invites submissions of good practices for inclusion in the Good Practices Repository. Healthcare workers, programme managers, districts, facilities, academic institutions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), private-sector partners, industry partners and community organisations are implementing effective solutions to address health system challenges and improve health outcomes. Many of these valuable experiences remain undocumented and are therefore not widely shared or adapted by others facing similar challenges. The Good Practices Repository has been established to identify, document, and share effective practices that can support learning, adaptation, and health system improvement across the country. Most importantly, the real value of sharing good practices lies in its potential to create an exponential effect across the health system. When successful approaches are documented and shared, they can be adapted and implemented in multiple settings thereby extending their impact far beyond the original site. In this way a single innovation or improvement can catalyse widespread change which can accelerate learning and drive improvements in the health space across the country.

What is a Good Practice?

A good practice describes an intervention, programme, service, innovation, policy or approach that has demonstrated effectiveness in addressing health challenges and improving outcomes. Good practices are typically evidence-informed, make use of available resources and has the potential to be adapted, scaled or replicated in other settings.

Submissions may relate to one or more of the following areas:

• Health priorities
• Maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health
• HIV, TB and sexually transmitted infections
• Non-communicable diseases
• Mental health
• Environmental health and climate change
• One Health
• Antimicrobial Resistance
• Health system strengthening
• Leadership and governance
• Health financing
• Digital health and health information systems
• Human resources for health
• Service delivery and quality improvement
• Emergency and disaster preparedness
• Environmental health and climate change
• Antimicrobial resistance
• Medicines, technologies and supply chain management
• Community and implementation approaches
• Community engagement and participation
• Health promotion and disease prevention
• Multisectoral collaboration and partnerships
• Knowledge translation and evidence use
• Equity-focused and people-centred approaches
• Other Areas
• Other initiatives that contribute to improved health system performance, health outcomes, or population wellbeing.

Who can submit?

Submissions are welcome from organisations, institutions, programmes, and partnerships involved in the planning, delivery, management, evaluation, or support of health services, including:

• National, sub-national, regional, district, and local health authorities
• Public sector programmes and units
• Non-governmental, civil society and community-based organisations
• Academic and research institutions
• Professional bodies and associations
• Private-sector organisations and industry partners contributing to health system strengthening, service delivery, innovation, or public health programmes
• Multi-sectoral partnerships and collaborative initiatives
• Development partners, multilateral agencies, and international organisations

Assessment criteria

• Submissions will be assessed against an adapted World Health Organization (WHO) Good Practice criteria, including:Demonstrated effectiveness
• Efficient use of resources
• Relevance to a priority health system challenge
• Sustainability
• Ethical soundness
• Potential for adaptation or replication
• Innovation (optional but desirable)

Why submit?

• Selected practices will:Be featured in the Good Practices Repository
• Contribute to shared learning
• Receive national visibility and recognition
• Support evidence-informed policy and programme development
• Provide opportunities for replication and scale-up
• Showcase the achievements of health system implementers and partners
• Contribute to sustained efforts at improving various tiers of the health system

Submission requirements

Complete submission template including the following information:

• Executive summary
• Background: Description of the challenge addressed
• Intervention: Description of the intervention or practice
• Approach: Implementation process
• Key achievements: Results and outcomes achieved (describe outcome measures and metrics for success of the programme/intervention/tool)
• Lessons learnt: Description of lessons learnt which can inform replication in other contexts
• Sustainability considerations
• Supporting materials, where available
• Only complete submissions containing sufficient information for assessment will be reviewed.

Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. Feel free to submit throughout the year.

How to submit: Submissions can be completed online through the Good Practices Repository submission portal:

https://www.goodpractices.hst.org.za/for-authors

[n.b. PJ - The link supplied does not appear to work, there is a submit option through the above page.]

For further information, please contact: GoodPractices AT hst.org.za

HIFA profile: Maryam Rumaney currently works as a freelance scientific and English language editor. In addition, she offers consulting services to the laboratory industry. mbrumaney AT gmail.com

HIFA - Healthcare Information For All

View this contribution on the web site

IFS Report: 'From fiscal rules to fiscal traffic lights: rethinking the UK fiscal framework'

'In other words, the current framework means that macroeconomic volatility is mainlined into policy volatility, which adds unnecessarily to economic uncertainty and makes good policymaking less likely. There is also a problem of asymmetry: when the forecast improves, any additional ‘headroom’ is typically treated as free money and happily spent. Yet when the forecast worsens, the rules tend to get changed or ‘gamed’: Chancellors of all political stripes have proved adept at promising future tax rises or spending cuts which are unlikely to be delivered, but which allow them to meet the letter of their rolling fiscal targets. 

All this is to say, the current framework is not delivering good outcomes. It is not achieving sustainable public finances, it has limited credibility with financial markets, and it is not creating the conditions for good policymaking or for a high-quality public debate about the important issues at play. It seems likely that any framework, left in place for long enough, will start to create problems in practice, as unhelpful norms emerge and actors find ways to game the system. Just as the tendency of HM Treasury to fudge its forecasts in the 2000s was one reason for the creation of the OBR as a corrective mechanism, the dysfunction around the current framework necessitates a change in thinking and approach.'

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'Fixation upon - lived [ equilibrium ] experience 'RAG' assessment of patients in mental health services - caseload management	fiscal headroom' GOOD - BAD PASS - FAIL Equilibrium Outcomes
Public Policy   Interviews   sustainable public finances   good policymaking (here) high-quality public debate Cost of Living	Report: IFS Policy Office for Budget Responsibility

My source: Valentina Romei, IFS urges end to fixation on fiscal 'headroom', Financial Times, 19 February, 2026, p.3.

Images: IFS

(ii) What sort of field is 'nursing'?

Mathematics without Apologies:
Portrait of a Problematic Vocation

Harris quickly differentiates between pure and applied - practical mathematics. Nursing can claim mathematical tenure in being a constant. A constantly problematic vocation for governments worldwide. Temporarily recognised for its criticality, in terms of the population's dependence on nursing by the COVID pandemic. The global nursing workforce while often a political football in its host country, is in intensive care amid demographic change and policy imperatives. 

Neither maths/mathematics, numeracy, nor arithmetic are indexed in:

Curriculum Development In Nursing Education (4th. Edition).

If present, such detail might suggest a concept-based curricula approach, but the dichotomies of qualitative-quantitative and subjective-objective work to good effect; performing as per the axes of Hodges' model. Perhaps, there are nonetheless, more similarities between mathematics and nursing than an axial first-glance might suggest?

I've noted (if not lamented) the fall in prominence of nursing theory, models of care in nurse education and practice. Within the corpus of books the phrases are still common in terms of usage:

It seems that 'models of care' are not the sole preserve of nursing and health disciplines. These models are also defined by management consultancies*, care commissioners, economists, philosophers and policy makers. Hodges' model itself can be used to argue this is a legitimate activity, desirable and to be expected. 

An admittedly small sample, but here in NW England student nurses I encounter struggle to recall 'a' model, or theory that has caught their attention. With discussion, they realise they have been to this abstract place before. The attention on models and theory does not appear to match the focus afforded in North America. The political background of national health systems provision, the state of development of health services and systems and education make a huge difference between nursing academia globally, even as we strive to be one-family. 

Harris writes of the quest narrative in mathematics. There are problems solvers and the theory builders in mathematics. Tenured mathematicians seek the 'golden goose'. Hodges' model is the quest here: a golden goose in cognitive form that all can possess with requisite basic literacy and explanation. While as noted in (i) mathematics is a relaxed field (Preface, p.xi), it seems nursing theory is a (largely) deserted field. Ironically, seeking person-centredness, this is where Hodges' model begins - a necessarily conceptually deserted field that offers only structure but with the prospect of unconditional positive regard.

Harris, M. (2015) Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation. Princeton University Press.

*Reimagining the nursing workload: Finding time to close the workforce gap. https://mck.co/43tMB7v
via @McKinsey [A post may follow.]

See also: 'commissioning'

'nursing theory'

Humanistic motivations for study - c/o Harris et al.

 "Asking '[I]n what sense . . . can mathematics be considered a democratic regime . . .' open to all, Pimm and Sinclair quote (Supergiant) Henri Poincaré to the effect that 'only mathematicians are privy to the aesthetic sensibilities that enable' the decision of 'what is worth studying.' The article, published in a journal for educators, is motivated by the 'view that mathematics can do something for me in a humanistic sense that repays the the careful attention and deep engagement it may require; one that may expose students to a fundamental sense and experience of equality . . . and provide them with another sense of human commonality.'" p.33.  

Harris, M. (2015) Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation. Princeton University Press.

Hodges' model - Axes - Structure :: Domains - Content

ii The Jubilee Centre Framework for Character Education in Schools - 3rd edition

Some thoughts on the previous post ...

Regards, "Character is fundamental: it is the basis for human and societal flourishing;" and "Character is sought freely to pursue a better life;" p.7.

While education is rivalrous - character education is - should be non-rivalrous?

Philosophers have and continue to debate the meaning of 'success', 'good', and related concepts. At a time when students will be acutely aware of the socio-economic transformations needed to accept environmental limits and re-shape the global economy; the provision of tools for reflection, critical thinking, problem solving and 'Being well' should not be a constraint.

There is - must be - a place for a tool that invites, facilitates and rewards conceptual exploration, vocabulary development and the personal and social development that can follow.

Caught, Taught and Sought - are memes still a 'thing'? 

Hodges' model clearly has a hold here. 

Perhaps, you can embrace it too?

It is encouraging to see how character education draws in PSHE, Citizenship, general studies and more. We should not just acknowledge the role of the humanities in a well-rounded education, but as we turn-the-stones let's be aware of the corners too.

Here in the UK students study for O-Levels, A-Levels, T-Levels, BTEC and more. The government's policy to level up - demands that in education we run the gamut of the alphabet and much more. 

Given the global scope of education (usually*), with Hodges' model a product of Manchester Polytechnic now Manchester Metropolitan University, there are strong links between the healthcare sector, education and research - hence the sciences. The question now concerns the nature of these links. I feel they are bound to be strengthened. Even within healthcare, medicine, nursing and the allied health professions - on-the-ground it appears there is a need to do more to effect positive change through the sustainable development goals and not just draw attention to the social determinants of health, but to determine how we can act on them.

*https://theirworld.org/

University of Birmingham 2013, 2017, 2022
ISBN: 9780704429789
https://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/527/character-education/framework

Cover image:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362745797_The_Jubilee_Centre_Framework_for_Character_Education_in_Schools_3rd_revised_version 

Schoolboy's guilt after controversial goal 50 years ago in Wirral football game finally put right:

ITV hub - https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2022-08-27/50-years-of-extra-time-for-schoolboy-football-match

 

 

Book: "The Things That Really Matter"

Philosophical conversations on the cornerstones of life

[ open access ]

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"The Things That Really Matter"

Source: Literature search - inc. Dewey, reflect.

More corners - and yes - all can be 'found' here.

https://twitter.com/imathematicians/status/1530724466073952261?s=20&t=eF1XRD9HbkSJ2XWWbIk2qQ

Radical Health: Doing Medicine, Health Care, and Anthropology of the Good

Freie Universität Berlin (online), 24-27 June 2021

Convened by:

Medical Anthropology Working Group (German Anthropological Association DGSKA e.V.)

Association for Anthropology and Medicine (AGEM e.V.) 

Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin

In contemporary times of proliferating neoliberalization, augmenting socio-economic disparity, environmental degradation, and political struggles around identities and belonging, health and well-being are becoming increasingly fragile. Not least, COVID-19 illustrates how intimately entangled economic, ecological, social, cultural, and political factors can be, and how they affect people’s living environments, health, and health care provision. Our conference brings together the fields of medical anthropology, medicine, and public/global health to focus attention on how ‘healthy futures’ can be envisioned, theorized, and actually ‘done’ despite multiple constraints. We gather social scientists, medical professionals, health activists, and artists whose contributions will open up avenues toward an understanding of what is conducive to “good” health.

The conference begins on Thursday, 24 June 2021 at 14.30 CEST  (Central European Summer Time, UTC/GMT +2 hours)

Keynote address "Good for what: Radical health in the midst of an epidemic" by Professor Adia Benton (Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois) on Thursday, 24 June 2021, 19-20 CEST.

For further information and free registration, please visit https://nomadit.co.uk/radical-health/

-- 
Dr. Dominik Mattes
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter | Research Associate
Freie Universität Berlin | Institut für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie
DFG SFB 1171 "Affective Societies“
Teilprojekt C03 "Regieren religiöser Vielfalt in Berlin. Affektive Dynamiken der In- und Exklusion im urbanen Raum"

Habelschwerdter Allee 45 | 14195 Berlin | Raum JK30/203