Evolution of Social Franchising in Uttar Pradesh: Tapping Rural Providers for Quality Family Planning Services

Purpose: The social franchising model in UP innovated with integration of maternal health and family planning to generate interest among private providers and develop a sustainable model for providing quality FP services to rural areas. Data or information: The model was conceived as a three-tiered health services network for 35 districts of UP that would be sustainable after three years. The model has generated CYP of 944526 till Jan 2012 since Sep 2007. An operations research approach was adopted in which study of franchisee units (N=124, 2008), periodic medical audits of franchisees, client satisfaction survey (N=113, 2009), regular analysis of franchisee data and quantitative and qualitative mid-term evaluation (N=350, 2009) were conducted. Methods:The social franchising project was initiated in August 2007 with the vision of creating a sustainable public-private partnership in healthcare for low-income working class and poor by developing a sustainable network of franchised hospitals offering quality FP and RH services at pre fixed prices to provide services at 30 - 50% below market pricing. Major results: • Pricing of services should be based on ‘most frequent value' for target clients rather than minimum value. • Promoting wider capabilities of network enhances value proposition for the franchisees. Recommendations:These private providers are readily available partners in rural areas that can be tapped for providing FP services under any other government programme. Networks are not sustainable with only family planning services and the basket of services needs to be broadened.