Browsing by Author "Ndlovu, Simphiwe Emmanuel."

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Evaluating public sector service delivery at KwaZulu-Natal provincial hospitals : a case study of the Durban Metropolitan and Ilembe region.
(2012) Ndlovu, Simphiwe Emmanuel.; Kader, Abdulla Dawood.
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa,1996 (Act 108 of 1996) and the Patients’ Rights Charter (Patients’ Rights Charter: Online) guarantee all citizens the right to basic health care services (South Africa, 1996: chapter 3). Furthermore, the White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service (South Africa, 1997) states that the delivery of healthcare should be guided by the principles contained in the framework of Batho Pele, a Sotho term meaning “People First”. Hospitals play an important role in delivering healthcare. However, strong allegations have been made about the inability of various provincial hospitals to provide health care in line with the Constitution and the Patients’ Rights Charter. Customer satisfactionis a vital measure of performance for firms, industries and national economies (Anderson et al., 1994).The growing health care literature suggests that patient satisfaction should motivate strategic decisions in the healthcare sector (Andaleeb, 2001). Research has indicated that the services provided by a company or institution can be measured by determining the inconsistency between what the customer wants (expectations) and how the customer experiences the service (perceptions). Little research has been conducted to date in KwaZulu-Natal provincial hospitals to evaluate the progress made in improving service delivery of healthcare; the healthcare system and the administration thereof, which is a major cause of poor service delivery in the provincial hospitals. This research study aims to contribute towards the identification of health care requirements by articulating the expectations of patients. Following a literature review which provided insight into the conceptual and contextual framework of public administration and the role of knowledge management in enhancing public sector service delivery, empirical data were gathered by means of questionnaires administered to patients, nurses and doctors at three hospitals in iLembe region and eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal – Addington, King Edward VIII and Stanger Hospitals – that serve urban, rural and semirural communities. The study’s findings revealed that there is indeed, reason for concern with regard to the identified service delivery goals and with regard to improving the health care system in general. The findings show that there is a weak, non-significant, negative linear relationship between the services offered at the three provincial hospitals compared with the expectations of patients who were admitted to these hospitals during the time the research was conducted. There is a need for further research regarding the interface between public sector provincial hospital services and service delivery, and the quality of services offered by hospitals in order to comply with Batho Pele Principles. It is anticipated that the study’s recommendations will assist hospitals in the eThekwini Metro and iLembe region in dealing with the challenges they face with regard to hospital service delivery and the monitoring and evaluating of Batho Pele Principles in the quest for a more efficient and effective delivery mandate.
Improving customer services at the Department of Home Affairs.
(2009) Ndlovu, Simphiwe Emmanuel.; Singh, Anesh Maniraj.
The purpose of this study was to design and implement a customer service model that will assist the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to improve their levels of service delivery by providing world class customer services. A sample population of 51 managers or senior managers who are students at the University of Kwazulu Natal, Graduate School of Business were interviewed. The respondents were from different companies in both the private and public sectors. The results indicated that there is a strong correlation between client satisfaction and the quality of service provided by DHA. Data was gathered by means of interviews. This made it possible to address specific areas of interest for the study. The interview questions consisted of three areas of focus, namely demographical information, customer service-related issues and DHA service-related issues. The research questions were original as there were no pre-exiting interview questions that met the research criteria. The questions were based on a theoretical foundation. Interviews were conducted on a sample group of 51 respondents and consisted of open-ended questions in order that the respondents were able to fully express themselves when answering the questions. The non-probability sampling technique was used. SPSS was used to analyse the data. The study revealed that DHA has a serious problem with staff inefficiency and many members of staff lacked customer service skills that could help the Department to improve their service quality. The study also revealed that most of the clients had visited the DHA offices to apply for Identity Documents. It is was not clear if those were new documents or first applications, but the study can assume that since these people were adults, the possibility existed that most of them were applying for lost ID documents. The study highlighted the need to improve the levels of service by training staff members, but there is also a need to increase human capacity on counters especially in the sections dealing with ID collection, ID applications and Passports.