Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Aden Duale has issued a fresh directive to the Council of Clinical Officers (COC) set to overhaul how clinicians are hired.
Speaking when he met the council officials led by its Chairperson, Prof Samuel Kang'ethe, Duale insisted on the COC's vital role in ensuring integrity, evidence-based regulation, and transparency in the licensing and oversight of clinical officers and facilities.
"Do not license any clinical officer trained in an institution that has not been duly merited, inspected, and audited by the Council," Duale stated.
This, he said, could safeguard the standards of training and professional practice, which he noted was paramount to ensuring the health and safety of the public.
To ensure the new directive is followed to the letter, the CS ordered the council to undertake a comprehensive re-inspection of all licensed health facilities and submit detailed reports to the ministry.
"You must reinspect all these facilities and do a constant check. The CEO must go and sit with the CEO of the other council. You must find a way of working," Duale stated.
"There is no way his special team can deny a facility, and you give them a licence. We will not accept it because he will also bring his special report to us, so if we see that the two regulatory bodies' reports contradict, that is a problem."
He also called for the full digitisation of COC systems in line with the Ministry’s Digital Health Strategy and the Digital Health Agency to facilitate real-time oversight and curb malpractice.
Duale also assured the council of his and the health ministry's commitment to supporting the COC's course to enhance coordination, drive policy reforms, and ensure the successful rollout of the Taifa Care Model.
This comes just over a month after the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) joined the Health Sector Caucus in releasing a joint statement listing 30 reasons why they were rejecting the government's proposal to merge regulatory bodies.
"We, the officials and representatives of the health sector unions and associations under the Health Sector Caucus, reaffirm our position against the proposal to merge regulatory bodies and inform that peer regulations are currently the best standard since the regulator has a deeper understanding of the practitioners and institutions they regulate," read part of the statement.
The statement followed the proposal by the Ministry of Health Quality of Care Bill 2025, which seeks to defund and merge various health associations and unions into a single regulatory body, among other reforms that the unions have described as detrimental to the healthcare system.
