National Policy

This review of experience in accreditation and external quality assessment systems was produced at the request of the UK Department for International Development in India. The purpose of this review is to describe where External Quality Assessment fits in the broader set of levers that exist for engaging with health care providers and organisations in developing countries in order to improve quality and affordability of care. This information is partially based on theory, but primarily presents lessons learned and experience with accreditation and other assessment methods in both OECD and developing countries.

This paper reports on the design and implementation of a completely new pay system in the National Health Service (NHS) in England.Pay and pay systems are a critical element in any health sector human resource strategy. Changing a pay system can be one strategy to achieve or sustain organizational change. [from abstract]

Australia is experiencing workforce shortages across a number of health professions despite a significant and growing reliance on overseas trained health workers. The shortages are even more acute in rural and remote areas. It is critical to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the available health workforce, and to improve its distribution. This report describes the Australian government’s objectives of developing a more sustainable and responsive health workforce while maintaining a commitment to high quality and safe health outcomes. A set of national workforce objectives are also proposed.

This video clip is 6 minutes and 58 seconds and provides information on the training and retention of health workers in Cape Verde. The majority of the training is done abroad due to poor medical educational facilities in country, and the video communicates the policies and programs Cape Verde has used to ensure trained doctors return to the country as well as how they ensure deployment of doctors to rural areas.

The checklist described in this document has been developed as a tool to assist those involved in a systematic review of the human resource development component of the NTP. This component is often referred to as “training.” In this document, the term training is used in a broader context than the more traditional interpretation of the term, where training refers to organization and implementation of training courses. Training in this document is often replaced by the term “HR development” to stress the need for a broader and more long-term approach within NTPs. [from introduction]

The Code develops a consensus approach to dealing with the problem of international recruitment of health workers, while remaining sensitive to the needs of recipient countries and the migratory rights of individual health professionals. The Code covers issues of transparency, fairness, mutuality of benefits, compensation/reparation/restitution, selection procedures, and registration. [Description from author]

Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) initiative as a strategy to deliver community level service is a key health system reform for the Health Sector in general and the Ghana Health Service in particular. If the health sector is to achieve the Health Millennium Development Goals’ in Ghana, then there is the need for a drastic shift in the paradigm of service provision. CHPS provides us with a vehicle for making this paradigm shift so as to deliver community level service by engaging communities in taking decisions concerning their own health and recognizing that the primary producers of health are the individuals within households – especially mothers.

This text presents the context and background, the methodology and some of the main results of the regional consultation on the critical challenges for human resources in health in the Americas. This consultation hopefully documents how the countries in the Americas are facing the main challenges to the development of the health workforce. The main results and suggestions by the actors consulted with regard to the role of international cooperation in the countries of the Region are presented, so that the countries and international agencies can better formulate common strategies of development and strengthening of the work force in health.

This brief article provides a general introduction to HRH policy and the HRH situation in Myanmar.

These guidelines are meant to assist health planners in different countries to
analyze the nursing needs as related to HIV infection, to establish consistent
nursing service policy and to help them assess the initial needs for an HIV -
informed nursing workforce. [from preface]

This presentation was part of a International Conference on Global Health session, “Innovations in Human Resources: Strategies to Address the Health-Care Workers Shortage.” It discusses the context, the emergency hiring plan, strategies for finding local partners, design and implementation and lessons learned of Kenya’s emergency health workforce mobilization plan.

This background paper attempts to address the basic concept of national HRH observatories including what can they do, how to mobilize and establish them, types of activities, organization and coordintation, finance and examples of outcomes. [adapted from author]

This paper challenges the decision by the Government of Uganda to export health workers to developed countries. It argues that while the Ugandan National Health Policy emphasises strengthening the numbers of health personnel in order to be able to provide a minimum health care package and to redress the imbalances in distribution of skilled staff, it is totally contradictory to start exporting the few personnel available.

This presentation was part of the International Conference on Global Health session, “Answering the Call: Innovations in Human Resources by African Faith-Based Organizations.” It details several collaborative efforts between the MOH and various FBOs and the impact they have had on HRH in DR Congo.

The international mobility of health workers is nothing new. In recent years, however, migration of health workers — from highly skilled physicians to those in lesser skilled positions, from the developing world to wealthier destinations — has increased. Moreover, the countries with the most alarming outflows include those sub-Saharan African nations suffering acutely from the HIV/AIDS epidemic and dwindling numbers of health workers. Controversy surrounds the proper role of policy interventions in the global labor market of health care professionals.

The safety of heath care workers (HCWs) who take care of people with HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases is of paramount importance. Occupational transmission of blood borne infections is not regarded as a common problem in developed country settings, but this is not the case in resource poor countries where the incidence and impact of such exposures is under-reported and is now becoming appreciated as an important risk factor for HCWs. It is generally assumed that protection from occupational exposures requires expensive equipment which is not reasonable for resource poor healthcare services.

The main aim of these guidelines is to support countries in the Human Resource Development and management process of assessing the human resource for health situation, policy and plan development with the view of achieving some level of comprehensiveness and consistency country level. The guidelines will discuss HRH processes, situation analysis, policy and plan development with reference to the overall context of national health policies and strategies. These guidelines describe how to formulate, develop, review HRH situations, policies and plans with the flexibility necessary for each country context.

The intent of these guidelines is to assist the development of legislation governing human resources for health (HRH) to promote primary health care and health for all. National governments have universally endorsed the health for all concept and have adopted many strategies to implement it, but in a number of spheres legislation that might direct health services to this goal I slacking, inappropriate, outdated, or too weak to provide the necessary impetus for redirection of health care to the goal of health for all. [author’s description]

These guidelines help answer what national health workforce plans should contain and how they should be developed to give them the best chance of significantly improving health outcomes and moving countries as rapidly as possible towards universal access to essential health interventions. The guidelines should serve as overarching principles that will promote the success of health workforce plans, while ensuring that they are consistent with human rights. [adapted from author]

This document intends to provide a policy and strategic framework for management of health information, use of information in planning and management of health services and monitoring health sector performance. [from preface]

The Health Sector Policy elaborates the Government of Rwanda’s overall vision of development in the health sector, as set out in Vision 2020 and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, building on lessons learned from the implementation of the health sector policy adopted in 1996. Furthermore, the Health Sector Policy takes account of changes in the institutional environment resulting from the implementation of the national decentralisation policy.
The Health Sector Policy is the basis of national health planning and the first point of reference for all actors working in the health sector. It sets the health policy objectives, identifies the priority health interventions for meeting these objectives, outlines the role of each level in the health system, and provides guidelines for improved planning and evaluation of activities in the health sector.

The paper outlines a conceptual framework that integrates the key strategies that must be addressed and linked if policy-makers are to create the kinds of health care system to which the citizens of [central and eastern Europe and Eurasia] are entitled. It examines how financing, coordinated service delivery and quality measures matter independently, and it highlights the need to interweave them effectively with citizen and community participation mechanisms and a far-reaching concern for public health. It also reviews the complex issues that hinder or help the implementation of reforms and suggests how an understanding of context, stakeholders and capacity will be critical to delivering change.

This paper examines health workforce and migration policies in New Zealand, with a special focus on the international recruitment of doctors and nurses. [from abstract]

The main purpose of the report was to review the current situation on human resource for health and the mobilization of medical doctors to work at commune level in Vietnam…Although Vietnam has established an extensive network and plentiful supply of health personnel, the distribution of health workers is significantly imbalanced, especially at the commune level. In order to improve accessibility and quality of health care for population especially for the poor, the appropriate policies are needed to motivate health worker, especially medical doctors to work at commune level. [abstract]

NORAD commissioned this study in order to learn how the human resource challenge currently is being addressed in Tanzania. Over the last few years, awareness has increased among policy makers in Tanzania that the country is facing a health worker crisis, and the Ministry of Health has initiated the development of a strategy to address the problem. A study of the ongoing process in Tanzania can provide useful insights for similar efforts in other countries. A second aim of the study was to identify knowledge gaps for the development of evidence-based human resource strategies in Tanzania. By structuring available evidence within a strategic policy framework, and by identifying key knowledge gaps, this study may serve as an input to the further efforts to strengthen the health workforce in Tanzania.

The purpose of this policy document is to seek to ensure that Human Resources for Health, and their related functions are given the prominence, importance and resource allocations they require as the most crucial factor for health service delivery. It addresses a number of salient Human Resources for Health issues, identified through studies and broad consultation that require urgent attention to promote good performance, productivity and cost-effective practices.

This HRH policy document addresses the production and utilization of Human Resources within the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone. It also responds to the contemporary challenges and developments including the exodus of human resources and advancement in technology. This policy intends to regulate and direct planning, production, management, utilization and monitoring of HR within the health sector. [from foreword]

This presentation was part of the AIDS Law Project’s Human Resources for Health seminar, which was held to address the challenges facing the health sector. The PowerPoint argues the constitutional obligations for the South African government in the development of a reasonable HR plan and gives an outline of how that plan should be organized.

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The nurse program for foreign countries in Indonesia has been carried out since 1996. In the beginning, this program attempted to solve the false ‘surplus’ problem of nurses in Indonesia. Recently, however, the MOH has developed serious concerns with this program. There have been several efforts to promote the nurse program for foreign countries starting with the improvement of education, recruitment and other mechanisms related to nurses for foreign countries. Some achievements, strengths, weaknesses, potentials and threats are discussed in this paper. Alternative policy inputs for future improvement of this program have also been submitted.

This paper incorporates eight issues: donor agencies and their contribution in shaping the HR agenda; national and international agency identification of good HR practice the networks to disseminate it; successes and failures in implementing change in HRH policy and practice; the role for effective national level involvement in HR in a decentralised system; introduction and implementation of new HR ideas and theories; the role of international agencies and national governments; better integration of HR policies into national level health systems planning; and major constraints on achieving appropriate recognition of the importance of HR.