Determining the effect of sub-contractor’s expertise on service delivery in public hospitals in Nakuru County

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the effect of sub-contractor expertise on service delivery in public hospitals in Nakuru County. The agency theory guided the study. Both cross-sectional and explanatory research designs were adopted. The research was concerned with collecting data from procurement officers, heads of departments, and medical superintendents of public hospitals operating in Nakuru County. A census design was adopted where all 80 staff were projected to participate in the study. The study was delimited to primary data collected from the respondents using a structured questionnaire. The research instrument was pilot tested with the primary objective of assessing its validity and reliability before it was employed in collecting data for the full-scale study. The collected data were analysed with the assistance of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Multicollinearity tests were conducted, and these were tested using variance-inflated factors (VIF) and Tolerance (T), where the two parameters were reciprocal to each other. The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The effect of each of the aforesaid aspects of subcontracting on service delivery was as well established to be statistically significant. Professionalism, competence, specialised expertise, and experience were concluded to be essential ingredients considered by these hospitals in selecting and engaging subcontractors. The study also concluded that the expert subcontractors had a statistically significant effect on service delivery in public hospitals in Nakuru County. It is recommended that there should be clear policies on various aspects of expertise subcontracting and contracting in the public health sector.