Budget Execution and Service Delivery of Public County Health Facilities

Abstract

The health sector has the overall goal of providing equitable and affordable health care to Kenyans at the highest affordable standards. Therefore, this study examined the influence of budget execution on the service delivery of devolved County Health Facilities. The study was anchored on the tenets of the Resource-Based Theory. An explanatory survey research design was adopted for this study. The ideal target population in the study comprised of 15,160 doctors and clinical officers (COs) and nurses from 1423 hospitals in Kenya. The study employed stratified sampling technique to select the 390 respondents from three levels of public hospitals in Kenya. This included 14 doctors, 24 COs, and 352 nurses. The study used a questionnaire as a research instrument. Data analysis wаs conducted using Mean, Standard Deviation, Frequencies and Percentages. Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling were used to identify the significant indictors of budget execution and service delivery. The path coefficients obtained show that the path coefficient was positive and significant at 0.05 level of significance. The study recommends that enough budgetary allocations ought to be given to the hospitals. When budgetary allocations do not meet the remuneration demands of the healthcare workers, service delivery is paralyzed through strikes, reduced motivation of work and other skilled staff are forced to pull out of the hospitals. Service delivery will only be achieved with enough allocations done on time.