About National Product Supply Chain Management Programme (NPSCMP)

VISION

Health product security for all Nigerians irrespective of class, creed, or physical location from the sources of distribution.

MISSION

To build and sustain in-country capacity for the delivery and use of health products in line with universal health coverage .

WHO WE ARE

We are the institution of Government of Nigeria with MANDATE to enhance the country capacity to build resilient, effective, and efficient health supply chain system in a sustainable manner.

We accomplish this by striving to bridge the gap between system requirements for the contribution of supply chain to UHC and actual implementation on the ground.
For this role we serve as the in-country resource for filling strategic gaps for the health supply system

WHAT WE DO

NPSCMP coordinates by provision of standards (policies, strategies, framework, tools, benchmark, language human resources, infrastructure, development of template etc) for supply chain and ensures that they are used appropriately by all stakeholders.

Manage the vision of Nigeria’s health supply chain system and continuously advance its maturity.
Provide standards of supply chain best practices and capacitate states and other implementers to adopt and use them.
Ensure that processes in use meet standards while assuring that the services they support reach acceptable levels and in line with the health priorities of government.
Ensure that the processes are pro-actively and continuously studied with the intent to enhance performance , prevent or decrease the chances of problems.

Why NPSCMP

Access to essential medicines is critical to achieving universal health coverage and is also recognized as a key building block of a strong health system. Medicines and health products are important for addressing health problems and improving quality of lives. They form an indispensable component of health systems in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease and in alleviating disability and functional deficiency.

Critical stakeholders, not limited only to supply chain, have over the years recognized the need to improve the pharmaceutical and health product management practices in the country, noting that a number of challenges still hinder proper access to healthcare.

Some challenges include stock-outs of essential supplies that continue to be experienced in a number of health facilities even while expiries are noted in others, warehouses and distribution systems not meeting minimum standards, decreased visibility in reporting across disease areas, and lack of basic logistics management control/information systems. Additionally, multiple supply chains that are often not very well coordinated have tried to address the immediate needs for access to health care products, which while well-meaning have also created some challenges on the other hand. Inefficiencies due to poor coordination/ integration/ harmonization are evident, as is duplication of some supply chain activities.

Led by the Federal Government of Nigeria, a team of Nigerian supply chain experts, also including Principal Recipients of Global Fund, Donors and their implementers, and Private Sector has arrived at a consensus on a future direction and immediate priorities for change.

Mandate

NPSCMP and NSCIP photos — *Former PSH; Mr. Linus Awutemni (5th right) meets with Stakeholders (Dec. 2014) and was the Steering Committee’s first Chairperson

The Steering Committee was set up to provide oversight function to the Nigerian Supply Chain Integration project (NSCIP) for a three (3) year period. It may be extended, if necessary, according to the analysis of the situation as agreed by the government and donors. The Steering Committee has the following specific mandates;

To promote access of all Nigerians to medicines and other health care products through the formulation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of supply chain policies; and the initiation of legislation aimed at ensuring that the products are available at the point of need in acceptable quality standard in line with Universal Health Coverage(UHC)
To act as liaison between the Federal Ministry of Health, it Agencies/Parastatals and other bodies on issues affecting the supply chain management of medicines and other healthcare products.
Resource Mobilization and Allocation
Alignment of Initiatives
Priority setting for investments
Long term governance beyond the 3 years of the integration project
Contracts, Service, Quality and Cost Performance Management
Govern supply chain design decisions

Initiation

The Nigeria Supply Chain Integration Project (NSCIP) emerged from the National Product Supply Chain Management Programme (NPSCMP) of the department of food & Drugs Services in the Federal Ministry of Health. A Steering Committee was inaugurated in March, 2015 by then Minster of Health Dr. Haliru Alhassan with the then Permanent Secretary; Mr. Linus Awute as Chairperson.

Key stakeholders of the steering committee include; FGON, The Global Fund, USAID, UNFPA and Bill Melinda Gates Foundation – or nominated representatives must be present to form a quorum.

The Steering Committee meets quarterly or exceptionally as the needs arises.

After initiation, the Federal Ministry of Health through the Steering Committee allotted a building to the programme and over-saw the posting of civil servants to the Project. Consultants were selected to mentor on specific areas of logistics and project management. This co-location of staff ensures easy transfer of skill and fosters on-the-job trainings which led to speedy execution of task. Staff anchored strategic work areas like;

Federal and State coordination
Warehousing and Distribution
Logistics Management Information System (LMIS)/Logistics
Management Coordination Unit (LMCU)
Communications and Change
Accounts
Admin and Management.

NSCIP Implementation

NSCIP team — Then Steering Committee Chairperson/PSH; Mrs. Amina Shamaki (7th left) meets with PSM Stakeholders (Nov. 2015)

The Ministry in ensuring that the mandate of the Project is met especially in manifesting evidence of integration highlighted 14 states as pilots for implementation. These states alongside the Federal level are to benefit from intense technical and some resource mobilization all geared towards ensuring that inherent systems are assessed with gaps filled towards optimization.

The Steering committee, under the stewardship of then Permanent Secretary, Amina Shamaki steered integration into her implementation phase with the following key activities embarked;

Engagement of Capacity Building Services Providers to anchor and roll out the mandates of the Project in Federal/State coordination, Warehousing/Distribution, Communications/Change and LMCU/LMIS
Penetration/Advocacy visits to top hierarchy of the 14 states on the need to support the LMCU via creation of awareness & sustainable funding stream via the state budget
Support to established state LMCU with the provision of 2 PSM consultants to each state to build capacity of staff and provide support
Federal level needs/skill assessment and recommendations on training requirements
Operationalization/Work plan technical assistance to focal 14 states
Trainings and capacity building on forecasting, quantification, project management, warehousing best practices e.t.c.
Road mapping of PSM in the country with stakeholders from all disease programmes and partners aggregation and agreeing on model systems that can be adopted across specific logistics work streams.

NSCIP Transition

NPSCMP — *Steering Committee Chairperson/PSH; Mrs. Binta Adamu Bello (4th left) with the Global Fund, Dept. Of Food & Drugs and the NSCIP (Aug. 2016)

Sustaining the pace and momentum of implementation, the urgent need arose of integration to garner a pragmatic approach regarding warehousing and distribution especially in the aftermath of the Global Fund’s Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) report indicting PSM processes in-country and highlighting inefficiencies in the manner of health commodity storage in the country.

Under the leadership of the present PSH/Chairperson of the Steering Committee; the Nigeria Supply Chain Integration in the Dept. Of Food & Drugs services have set in motion some transitional measures to curtail the drawbacks identified in the OIG report and curb most of the PSM inadequacies in the country. The follow measures have been embarked by the Ministry through the project;

Identification of 6 zonal hubs (Lagos, Abuja, Gombe, Imo, Sokoto & Calabar) with a standardised business plan.
Program specific estimation of present in-country commodity load and location
Piloting of integrated warehousing and distribution in Sokoto & Calabar with a PPP model used to manage the facilities (from January 2017).
Use of Standard Pharma-grade (Warehouse-in-a –box) facilities in Abuja (December 2016) and Lagos (March 2017) to improve in-country warehousing and distribution
Enhanced capacity of State LMCU to develop distribution plan and coordinate activities of third Party logistics (3PLs) to their respective states

As the Transition gathers steam, the scope of the project has been expanded to the rest of the country from the 14 states and to other program areas with focus on LGA/grass root systems integration & strengthening.