What are the health needs and challenges?

With the rate of NCDs in Kenya rising, the need for enhanced patient support and palliative care is increasingly important to ensure the best possible support to patients and their families by delivering high quality of care to improve patient outcomes, with care starting at an early stage from the point of screening and diagnosis, and throughout the patient journey.

Partnership activities and how they address needs and challenges

To address the needs and challenges effectively and sustainably, Takeda have brought together a number of expert local stakeholders and existing initiatives into the National Integrated Cancer Care Curriculum, which includes the Palliative Care Training and is owned by the National Cancer Institute in the Kenyan Ministry of Health.

The purpose of this program is to equip primary healthcare professionals (PHPs) and community healthcare workers (CHWs) with the knowledge and skills to provide the best possible patient support and palliative care services to patients diagnosed with NCDs including cancer in Kenya, Takeda works with local partners, led by Amref Health Africa and in collaboration with the Kenya Hospice and Palliative Care Association (KEHPCA) that represents Hospices and Palliative care service providers in Kenya. We identify gaps and opportunities in providing patient support and palliative care training for NCD care as well as other life-threatening illness in the community and the primary healthcare system. This training is also supported by the Kenyan Ministry of Health.

Training is facilitated through Amref’s pre-existing, proven mobile health (m-health) LEAP platform, which is a scalable and integrated interactive learning solution that offers continuous training opportunities, peer collaboration and real time evaluation reports. Healthcare professionals pay a minimal fee for the digital learning modules in order to make the program sustainable at a local level, fund the training of community health workers, and enable expansion of the program.