Our Vision:
“The QHFMP 2013-2033 is the roadmap for the next generation’s healthcare infrastructure quality standards, requirements, investment priorities, service distribution and delivery alignments, guiding the entire continuum of healthcare capital allocation and advancing the health vision of the Nation.”
What the QHFMP Provides:
In 2013, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) developed the Qatar Healthcare Facilities Master Plan (QHFMP) 2013-2033, to plan, lead and direct the development of healthcare facilities in Qatar by advising on the need for healthcare facilities and on the need for retaining enough land space.
Due to ever changing healthcare needs and the nature of predictive planning, the QHFMP 2013-2033 is a non-prescriptive guiding strategy, requiring concrete action plans every five-years to implement it. This ensures that unforeseen changes in strategic plans, population structure, or demand and supply of healthcare are accounted for.
QHFMP Action Plan 2018-2022:
The Action Plan 2018 – 2022 reflects accurately the current status of Qatar’s healthcare system, the Qatar Healthcare Facilities Action Plan 2018 – 2022 was developed in six phases:
- A Current State Assessment was carried out to consolidate the learnings from the Action Plan 2013-2017 and to create a common understanding for stakeholders when developing the Action Plan 2018-2022.
- A Capacity Needs Assessment was conducted in order to project the demand and supply of healthcare services to identify any additional capacity requirements that require actioning by 2022.
- The QHFMP 2013-2033’s nine Facilities Classifications were refreshed to address the changing needs of the healthcare market.
- The QHFMP 2013-2033’s Facilities Guidelines and Urban Planning Guidelines were refined to align with the newly refreshed Facilities Classifications and to account for the latest updates to international best practice.
- A Facilities Distribution Strategy was developed to distribute needed facility capacity by Area.
- Action Plan 2018-2022 is a consolidated report that synthesizes all outcomes and learnings.
Approach to Action Plan 2018-2022:
The approach taken in developing this Action Plan 2018-2022 was based on consolidating the outcomes of all QHFAP 2018-2022 outputs into practical actions, leveraging heavily on the following three outputs: Current State Consensus, the Capacity Needs Assessment, and the Facilities Distribution Strategy.
The Capacity Needs Assessment was conducted to indicate potential gaps in the provision of healthcare services, and to determine capacity requirements for 2027 (given the long lead time for building facilities and the importance of proactive planning). By considering population variations, the Capacity Needs Assessment emphasised two alternative scenarios, Scenario 1 and Scenario 5, that form the basis for the Action Plan 2018-2022.
Scenario 1 identifies capacity gaps in line with official population projections from the Planning and Statistics Authority (base case scenario); and
Scenario 5 identifies capacity gaps in line with the impact of a high estimate of population growth.
These two scenarios were used to inform the Facilities Distribution Strategy, which was developed as part of the QHFAP 2018-2022 project. The Facilities Distribution Strategy proposes strategic direction and a scenario for distributing the required capacity in line with Qatar’s urban growth.
Given the certainty of its inputs, Scenario 1 constitutes the basis for the Facilities Distribution Strategy. However, the Facilities Distribution Strategy also accounts for the possibility of high estimate population growth and uses Scenario 5 to identify land that should be booked and
capacity that should be shelled to mitigate potential surges in demand. This ensures that if the high estimate scenario is realised, there is space for enough capacity.
Based on the Capacity Needs Assessment and Facilities Distribution Strategy, implementations actions were derived to appropriately respond to the population’s need for facilities. These implementation actions are required to ensure that projected capacity needs are addressed, it is worth noting that they respond to the need for facilities based on the system’s current practices. However, the Current State Consensus identifies significant opportunities to support a more optimal and sustainable method of operation.
To ensure that optimal practices are considered wherever possible, and that the learnings acquired throughout the action planning process are given due consideration, the Action Plan 2018-2022 recommends that prior to building new capacity, build evaluation actions are considered. These actions are based on the Build Evaluation Framework (BEF) proposed in this Action Plan 2018-2022, which is designed to evaluate the actual need for the public sector to build new capacity after exhausting other options including:
- Optimising existing capacity,
- Delegating capacity development to the private sector; and
- Expanding existing facilities.
Combined with the recommended implementation actions, these build evaluation actions will support in ensuring that capacity requirements are covered while ensuring that the healthcare system is working as optimally as possible, with the most efficient use of existing resources.
Furthermore, the Action Plan 2018-2022 translates its outcomes and recommendations into:
- Implementation actions required to ensure that facility needs are met, and unexpected changes are mitigated, based on current practices;
- Build evaluation actions required to ensure that the healthcare system is operating more efficiently and optimally. These are based on the challenges and opportunities that were identified when implementing the previous Action Plan 2013-2017, and when developing the current Action Plan 2018-2022; and
- Critical success factors to support the roll-out of this Action Plan 2018-2022 over the next few years.
Next steps:
As the Action Plan 2018-2022 consolidates all outcomes and lays the groundwork for addressing the healthcare system’s healthcare facility capacity requirements leading up to the year 2027. This Action Plan contains practical and relevant recommendations that leverages on the system’s opportunities from healthcare facility planning perspective.
To identify these actions, major accomplishments, strengths and challenges faced in the past five years upon implementing the previous Action Plan 2013-2017 were all explored, resulting in a set of actions that aim to make implementing the Action Plan 2018-2022 as realistic and relevant as possible.
While the scope of some actions may seem beyond the immediate sphere of facilities, ensuring better care and value in the healthcare system requires integrated planning that transcends facilities. As evidenced during the implementation of the Action Plan 2013-2017, building healthcare facilities does not immediately solve the capacity problem on its own, as much of the newly built capacity remains closed and non-operational. Therefore, while some of the recommended actions focus on building healthcare facilities (such as specialised LTC facilities), the Action Plan 2018-2022 goes a step further and takes a more holistic approach in recommending alternative methods by which capacity requirements can be addressed to ensure better value in the whole system.