Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the PharmAccess Foundation to roll out SafeCare quality-improvement programmes across federal tertiary hospitals nationwide.
The agreement, sealed through the National Tertiary Health Institutions Standards Committee (NTHIS) in Abuja, aims to raise clinical and operational standards, strengthen health-worker capacity, and transform tertiary facilities into centres of excellence.
Under the MoU, PharmAccess and the committee will conduct baseline assessments, provide ongoing technical support, train hospital quality teams and monitor performance via a digital platform.
Chairman of the standards committee, Prof. Philip Abiodun, described the partnership as a turning point in efforts to entrench consistent quality across the nation’s tertiary health system.
According to him, “The planned quality framework will allow structured assessments, performance-based ranking and targeted capacity building – and that the data generated will guide resource allocation, training priorities and investments to improve service delivery.
Delivering the keynote, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Salako, who was represented at the event, reaffirmed that quality healthcare is central to national development and welcomed the partnership as a practical step toward that goal.
The MoU sets out a phased rollout with performance tracking, capacity building and periodic reassessments.
Officials assured the initiative will inform financing and policy decisions for tertiary care and urged hospital leadership and stakeholders to embrace the framework to ensure sustained improvements in patient safety and outcomes.
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