The Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) initiative in the country has become a cornerstone in the country’s primary healthcare system, providing essential health services to communities, particularly in rural areas, and also a tool to accelerate the attainment of Universal Health Coverage to bridge the access inequity gap.
The CHPS has a rich history, dating back to 1994 when it was launched as a pilot project in Navrongo. It started as a Community Health and Family Planning (CHFP) project with the aim to provide door-to-door services in rural areas. It was designed to be community-driven, with household and community involvement.
CHPS compounds are basically facilities with community health nurses and volunteers who provide primary healthcare services to communities.
Due to its success, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) took advantage to scale up and by 1999 CHPS was declared a national policy and its implementation began nationwide in 2000.
Statistics indicate that between 2009 and 2011 functional CHPS compounds had doubled from 868 to 1,675. As of 2020, there were approximately 6500 CHPS compounds in operation covering 46 per cent of the country.
Scaling up CHPS compounds features prominently in the current government’s manifesto. In June, this year, the Minister of Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, announced that the government planned to construct approximately 600 CHPS compounds across the country by the end of 2025 as part of efforts to expand access to primary health care.
According to the minister, the initiative will see each district constructing two new CHPS compounds this year. He was optimistic that if the momentum was sustained, the country could exceed 2000 CHPS compounds over the next four years.. The success stories of CHPS are numerous.
For instance, studies have shown that CHPS has contributed to a decline in under-five mortality rates, especially among the poorest and least educated populations.
CHPS has improved access to skilled birth care; improved antenatal care attendance; increased the use and acceptance of family planning as well as encouraging community participation and engagement in health care.
These success stories show the potential of CHPS to improve health care and increase access to essential health services, especially in rural areas.
That is why the Daily Graphic commends Ecobank Ghana for investing GH¢500,000 in the renovation and expansion of the Dawhenya North CHPS compound as part of its staff volunteerism initiative (See Daily Graphic, Wednesday, September 17, 2025, page 39).
The project, which is the third of the bank’s employees volunteerism programme, was funded through contributions from staff and complemented by the bank.
Similarly the paper lauds the partnership CHPS has had with organisations like USAID and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) which have supported the construction and equipping of CHPS compounds, improving healthcare access and services in various regions over the years.
As with any initiative, there are challenges and it is obvious sustainable funding is one of them.
CHPS requires sustainable funding mechanisms to ensure its long-term viability and effectiveness.
There is, therefore, the need for strengthened health financing strategies for successful scale-up of the initiative.
The government could also look at expanding CHPS services to include essential emergency and maternal health services to further improve the benefits of the initiative.
The paper is happy to note that plans are underway to digitise CHPS compounds to enable them to provide e-health services and improve the quality of care through telemedicine and mobile health technologies.
While on the digitilisation move, government could also let the 24-hour economy agenda feed into the CHPS by coming up with a 24-hour service to improve access to care, especially at night.
In their study titled “Implementation of the community-based health planning services (CHPS) in rural and urban Ghana: a history and systematic review of what works, for whom and why” the authors conclude that a review of service provision to prepare and respond to pandemics, prevalence of non-communicable diseases and adaptation to changing community contexts, particularly urbanisation, are required for the successful delivery and future scale-up of CHPS.
CHPS is an effective tool to address the challenges of delivering an effective primary healthcare system, and the government’s efforts and partnership with other organisations to improve the CHPS project is a laudable one, and all efforts must be made to support, sustain and scale it up.
