Description of Project:

The Ministry of Health of Slovenia has commissioned a review and analysis of the health system from World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO) and The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (OBS) to:

— Inform the Minister on the performance of the health system;

— Assist the Government in gathering national and international evidence in order to identify possible reform options;

— Facilitate discussions around tentative reform options to be pursued with policy advisers.

The analysis will inform government thinking on health expenditure and financing reform measures as well as on the optimization of the health services network. The government aims to develop, approve and implement reform measures to improve service delivery and efficiency in the health sector and to enhance the financial sustainability of the health system given growing costs and aging demographics, while preserving and continuing to improve health outcomes.

The technical work for the project will identify key issues, and provide evidence on reform options and priority actions to improve the functions and structure of general public sector efficiency and performance. The analysis will also use administrative and facility-level datasets to examine patterns and trends in service delivery and identify opportunities for optimizing service delivery, so contributing to improving system efficiency and performance.

Project structure:

The project will consist of five evidence-generating Activities/work-programmes, with one team dedicated to each Activity:

— Activity 1: Fast Track Health Systems Review;

— Activity 2: Health system expenditure review;

— Activity 3: Assessment of health system funding;

— Activity 4: Purchasing and payment review;

— Activity 5: Optimizing service delivery: coordinated delivery at the primary-secondary and health and long-term care interfaces.

Each team will be guided by WHO/OBS and will include technical experts external to WHO-OBS, where necessary, with knowledge of and access to the data sources needed to support the analysis. The teams will be led by a Slovenian focal point and a WHO — OBS focal point. Each Activity work-programme will include a work-shop with relevant national experts and policy-makers to review and validate the draft findings and map tentative policy options.

In addition to the evidence-generating Activity work-programmes, the project will include a round of consultation with the Minister and Ministry of Health on key policy areas, as well as the organization of a set of Policy Dialogues that will present the evidence on priority topics and validate the findings of the evidence generating Activities.

The project has very tight deadlines for delivering outputs and will end on 31.12.2015.

Role of OBS Project Manager/ Work programme Focal Point:

The OBS Project Manager/Work-programme Focal Point role involves both project management and technical analysis functions as follows:

i) Project management:

— Co-ordination, management and monitoring of all Observatory deliverables on this project, namely for Activity/Work Packages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;

— Co-ordination of Observatory inputs during Activity workshops, ministerial consultation activities, as well as assisting with the organization of the set of Policy Dialogues;

— Close liaison with Slovenian counterparts and other WHO-OBS Work-programme focal points in managing the project;

— Monitoring and reporting of the WHO-OBS project budget;

— Supporting contracting arrangements with external technical experts involved in the project.

ii) Co-focal point for Activities 1 and 4.

The role of the WHO-OBS focal points for Activities 1 and 4 is to lead the team; to provide international comparative evidence and to ensure appropriate analytic and strategic inputs. S/he will also identify any external expertise that the team needs to complete the work.

In particular, Activity 1 (Fast Track Health Systems Review) will result in an updated Health Systems in Transition (HiT) review of the Slovene health system. HiTs are comprehensive overviews of the health system and how its various elements (funding, service delivery, governance, resourcing) are organized. They also provide an overview of the health system's performance, including the degree of financial protection and equity afforded by the financing system; the experience of users and their access to care; health and health service outcomes and the quality of care; and health system efficiency.

Thus, the content of this output is a central element of the whole project, providing the health system context for the other Activity work programmes and signalling the connections across work-programme themes. The OBS focal point for this Activity will work very closely with the Slovenian Activity work-programme teams to ensure that effective co-ordination and information flows take place, liaising closely with the other Activity focal points to avoid duplication of effort, ensure coherence of data and provide insights to the individual activity teams.

iii) Technical inputs for Activity 1.

The successful candidate will also act as a technical editor for the HiT on Slovenia, who will work closely with the Slovenian team as well as OBS colleagues on this Activity. The duties will include analysis and technical editing of the HiT report as well as co-ordinating the external review process to ensure quality control.

iv) Technical inputs for Activity 4.

This Activity work-programme analyses the purchasing and payment systems for health services and their role in making the health system affordable and promoting efficiency. The technical inputs for this Activity will involve co-ordinating with the Slovenian team gathering the national evidence and being part of the OBS team collecting and analysing relevant international evidence on: using HTA in health benefit packages; international approaches to purchasing processes; comparative approaches to payment for services; international examples of payment of professionals; and European pay for performance models.

v) Final Report editing.

Contributing to the writing up and editing of the final report, incorporating the findings of all work-packages.