Continuity of essential health services: facility assessment tool: a module from the suite of health service capacity assessments in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: interim guidance, 20 November 2020

This tool has been designed to help identify health systems bottlenecks in order to monitor and track the continuity of essential health services. This tool replaces the previous version published on 20 October 2020 and includes updates to the acknowledgements and annexes. It forms part of a wider Suite of health service capacity assessments in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. These different monitoring tools focus on different aspects of the dualtrack of maintaining essential health services while continuing to manage COVID-19 cases. The suite and the different modules are described in annex 1.

Content areas

This assessment tool covers the following aspects of essential health services:

• health workforce (numbers, absences, COVID-19 infections, health workforce management, training and support);
• financial management and barriers;
• service delivery and utilization (facility closures, changes in service delivery, community communication campaigns, changes in service utilization and catch-up strategies);
• IPC capacities (protocols, safety measures, guidelines and the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff);
• availability of therapeutics, diagnostics and supplies, and vaccine readiness; and
• provision of COVID-19 primary care services.