Stephen Billing’s Blog

Those involved in funding health services such as mental health services do not have it so easy.

The previous post described the perspective of the world of the CEO of an NGO – what it is like to be funded by an entity that does not actually use the services you provide.

But, it’s not all beer and skittles for a contract/relationship manager in a funding organisation such as a District Health Board. Imagine you are the new contract/relationship manager in the procurement area of the DHB. You start your job and you are responsible for a range of NGOs providing services, some with as few as 2 full time equivalent staff and others with over 100 full time equivalents.

You review each contract and find that some don’t specify how many service users will be catered for. The descriptions of the services specified in the contracts don’t match what the providers tell you they provide. The NGOs explain the reasons for this, but how do you tell if they are valid or not?

Informally, you hear both positive and negative things about the service provider.

One NGO is not meeting the reporting requirements. The information provided is incomplete and they tell you they don’t have the information you need. You can’t tell how many clients have received services, and you can’t tell if they are happy with the service they received. And you are responsible for delivering, through these contracts, a certain quantity of services to certain quality standards.

Basically, you have to walk a tight rope between developing enough trust with the provider so that they’ll tell you what’s going on for them, and at the same time holding the provider accountable for the quality, quantity and results of the services they deliver.

This is not an easy job!