The costs and financing needs of delivering Kenya’s primary health care service package

INTRODUCTION: For many Kenyans, high-quality primary health care (PHC) services remain unavailable, inaccessible, or unaffordable. To address these challenges, the Government of Kenya has committed to strengthening the country’s PHC system by introducing a comprehensive package of PHC services and promoting the efficient use of existing resources through its primary care network approach. Our study estimated the costs of delivering PHC services in public sector facilities in seven sub-counties, comparing actual costs to normative costs of delivering Kenya’s PHC package and determining the corresponding financial resource gap to achieving universal coverage. METHODS: We collected primary data from a sample of 71 facilities, including dispensaries, health centers, and sub-county hospitals. Data on facility-level recurrent costs were collected retrospectively for 1 year (2018–2019) to estimate economic costs from the public sector perspective. Total actual costs from the sampled facilities were extrapolated using service utilization data from the Kenya Health Information System for the universe of facilities to obtain sub-county and national PHC cost estimates. Normative costs were estimated based on standard treatment protocols and the populations in need of PHC in each sub-county. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The average actual PHC cost per capita ranged from US$ 9.3 in Ganze sub-county to US$ 47.2 in Mukurweini while the normative cost per capita ranged from US$ 31.8 in Ganze to US$ 42.4 in Kibwezi West. With the exception of Mukurweini (where there was no financial resource gap), closing the resource gap would require significant increases in PHC expenditures and/or improvements to increase the efficiency of PHC service delivery such as improved staff distribution, increased demand for services and patient loads per clinical staff, and reduced bypass to higher level facilities. This study offers valuable evidence on sub-national cost variations and resource requirements to guide the implementation of the government’s PHC reforms and resource mobilization efforts.