The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

  • Quality of Services

    The Global Fund has developed a strategy to assess Quality of Services and integrate this assessment in the Global Fund’s performance-based funding model, aiming at ensuring that Global Fund-supported programs are implemented according to internationally recognized and evidence-based technical policies and guidelines. The core of this strategy is the Rapid Services Quality Assessment (RSQA) which is applied during program implementation. The findings from these regular assessments are complemented by results for quality of services indicators which are presented in the M&E Toolkit 

    Rapid Service Quality Assessment

    The Rapid Service Quality Assessment (RSQA), will in general be implemented by the Local Fund Agent in conjunction with the On-Site Data Verification (OSDV). Its main objective is to assess and improve quality of services at country level, and to continuously build capacity in establishing and using quality improvement as an integral part of program implementation. More specifically, the RSQA appraises whether health services are implemented according to internationally recognized and evidence-based technical policies and guidelines.

    The RSQA tool consists of an assessment at two different levels:

    • The central/policy level questionnaire which assesses the availability of national disease program policies and guidelines for the Service Delivery Areas funded by the Global Fund, and whether these are in line with latest international recommendations relevant to the prevention and treatment of HIV, TB and malaria, e.g. the WHO recommendations.

    • The facility level questionnaire assesses compliance of service delivery under the Service Delivery Areas funded by the Global Fund with nationally defined standards.

    The RSQA will be rolled out in a phased manner from 1 January 2012. During the first implementation phase RSQAs will be conducted per Principal Recipient (PR), as relevant to the Service Delivery Areas (SDAs) covered by the RSQA, per disease program for all Country Team Approach (CTA) countries and all countries undergoing  Periodic Review in 2012 and 2013. Other countries may also be recommended for RSQA, on a case-by case basis, by the Global Fund Secretariat. The lessons learnt through RSQA implementation will help further improve the RSQA tools and guidelines.

    The following tools, guidelines and templates are available:

    • LFA Guidelines for Onsite Data Verification and Rapid Service Quality Assessment
      download [ PDF - 471 KB ]
    • LFA OSDV/RSQA Planning Template
      download [ DOC - 144 KB ]
    • RSQA HIV
      download [ XLS - 1 MB ]
    • RSQA tuberculosis
      download [ XLS - 1 MB ]
    • RSQA Malaria
      download [ XLS - 1 MB ]
    • Management Letter Template
      download [ DOC - 409 KB ]