Government Documents

The NSW Department of Health is responsible for managing nurse supply. It needs to identify the extent and nature of shortages and develop ways to attract, retain and best manage nurses working in public hospitals. This audit looks at how nurses are managed in four of our public hospitals and examines how the Department has responded to expected nurse shortages. It also highlights actions that have helped reduce the number of nurses leaving hospitals. [from foreword]

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.

The aim of the Code of Practice is to promote high standards of practice in the international recruitment and employment of healthcare professionals. This is underpinned by the principle that any international recruitment of healthcare professionals should not prejudice the healthcare systems of developing countries. Therefore a key component of the Code of Practice is to preclude the active recruitment of healthcare professionals from developing countries, unless there exists a government-to-government agreement to support recruitment activities. The Code of Practice also acknowledges the reality that the international movement of healthcare professionals is a long established practice that will continue.

An immunization consultation is useful when health workers are providing immunizations in their service area, but do not work in partnership with the community to attain full coverage. A consultation is not training but rather an opportunity to step back, look at problems that lead to low coverage and design strategies that involve the community in increasing that coverage. The consultation outlined in this Facilitator’s Guide is designed to help trainers enable health workers consider ways to increase and sustain a high immunization coverage in their respective service areas. [adapted fr

In 1996 an act of Parliament created the Ghana Health Service (GHS) as an extra-ministerial agency that is outside the civil service, freeing the health sector to change, innovate, and reform health care operations in Ghana. This flexibility enables the GHS to utilize research for guiding innovation with research activities. The GHS has adopted a model for community-based service delivery known as the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Initiative. CHPS is an integral part of the current Ghana Health Service Five Year Programme of Work and represents the health sector component of the national poverty alleviation programme.

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.

Outline of the community-based health planning and services (CHPS) initiative developed by the Ghana Health Services, as an enhanced Close to Client (CTC) System. CHPS aims to provide accessible primary health care to all communities of Ghana, by enabling District Health Management Teams throughout Ghana to develop approaches to community health care that are consistent with local traditions, sustainable with available resources, and compatible with prevailing needs. This article discusses, step by step, the processes involved in managing, planning, coordinating, and monitoring the CHPS initiative.

The intent of the report is to stimulate creative discussions among [British Colubia’s] health system stakeholders about opportunities for coordinated action on employee and workplace health. The best available evidence suggests that the scope and depth of workplace health challenges today require solutions that go beyond traditional workplace health promotion programs.

This curriculum is designed to help as a guide for the training of both generic and post basic health officers.

The Curriculum for Master of Science Course in Integrated Emergency Surgery (Obstetrics, Gynecology and General Surgery) was developed to produce emergency surgical health officers in Ethiopia capable of handling common emergency obstetrical-gynecological and emergency general surgical procedures including trauma at an accessible locality. [author’s description]

An annual review done against the priorities set in the South Africa Health Sector Strategic Framework, 1999 to 2004, and in the Strategic Plan of the National Department for 2003/04 to 2005/06. Section 2 is devoted to Human Resource Management Data.

The goal of this policy is to help management and staff minimize the risk of TB transmission in health care facilities and other facilities where the risk of transmission of TB may be high due to high prevalence of both diagnosed and undiagnosed TB such as prisons.

The study was conducted with the aim of generating evidence needed to enhance the Ministry of Health and Social Services’ (MoHSS) endeavours to redressing inequities in resource allocation in Namibia. It specifically purports to develop a needs-based allocation formula that will assist the MoHSS to shift its resource allocation mechanism away from the historical incrementalist type. [from executive summary]

This document describes USAID’s strategy for combating Tuberculosis. The strategy focuses on four main areas: a) expand and strengthen DOTS, b) increase and strengthen human resource capacity, c) develop and disseminate new tools and strategies, and d) adapt DOTS to address special challenges.

A cautiously optimistic appraisal of the Tanzania Health Interventions Project (TEHIP) in Tanzania, which was designed to test the proposition that mortality and morbidy rates in developing countries could be significantly reduced even with modest resources if health care funding was allocated to cost-effective health interventions more in line with the prevailing local burden of disease. [from preface]

The Gender Policy Guidelines have been established in order to support the Department of Health in meeting not only its constitutional commitment to promoting gender equity and equality, but also its own commitments to equity, meeting the needs of those who have been previously marginalized and improving its productivity and quality of care within the health services.

This study seeks to describe the existing systems for measuring and monitoring staff performance in the clinical setting and covered public and para-statal hospitals in Ghana. [author’s description]

Research projects demonstrating ways to improve health services often fail to have an impact on what national health programmes actually do. An approach to evidence-based policy development has been launched in Ghana which bridges the gap between research and programme implementation. The Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Initiative has employed strategies tested in the successful Navrongo experiment to guide national health reforms that mobilize volunteerism, resources, and cultural institutions for supporting community-based primary health care. Over a two-year period, 87 out of the 110 districts in Ghana started CHPS.

These guidelines target all health workers at the different levels of the health care delivery system and apply to both the formal and informal workplaces within the health sector. This document covers the basic principles that are required to ensure workplace safety and health including hazard identification, risk management, prevention and management of exposures and incidents. [from foreword]

This book provides a comprehensive view of health services in Namibia for the period 1995 to 1999, using data from the Namibia Health Information System. Chapters include an introduction to the health system, a survey of Namibia’s population; issues of access and utilization of water, sanitation, and health facilities; the prevalence and burden of disease for outpatients, inpatients, and mortality; the four priorities of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and maternal and child care; twelve additional maladies; and national and regional profiles. Because of full-color maps and graphics, each chapter is separated into a downloadable pdf file.

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 human resource (HR) problem in the health sector in sub-Saharan Africa has worsened to an extent that it has reached crisis proportions in some countries. Although the gravity of the problem varies across the continent, the situation in some of the countries is so grave that urgent action is needed. A complex set of factors has contributed to this problem, some exogenous, such as the austere fiscal measures introduced by structural adjustment, often resulting in cutbacks in the number of health workers. But endogenous factors are also to blame, including misdirected human resource and training policies, weak institutions, and possibly even inappropriate structures. Section I of the paper lays out the key features of the HR crisis as gathered from a review of available data and reports and interviews with health program managers, health officers and project task managers in east and southern Africa. Section II of the paper gathers a few good practices and mechanisms that have been tried to ease the HR problems in the region. It highlights some opportunities for reform and cites the continuing challenges and risks. [adapted from author]

This document describes the number and professional categories of health professionals currently working in the public sector; projection of health human resource demand for the next three years with the estimated staff attrition, and finally, the level of construction and expansions of training institutions and financial inputs required to achieve the projected human resource demand. [from introduction]

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.

Ghana, a low income developing country, is undergoing health sector reforms aimed at achieving greater equity of access to services, improved efficiencies in resource utilization, development of wider linkages with communities and other partners, as well as improved quality of health services. These reforms have strong influences on, and are influenced by, issues of human resources development, deployment and motivation. Some of the human resources issues debated under the reforms include issues of distribution of personnel, reprofiling of staff types and skill mixes including delegation of some essential skills.

The development of the Health Sector Strategic Plan is one of the steps following on from the Government of Rwanda’s decision to pursue a sector strategy process in the implementation of its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. It provides an overarching framework for health sector support over the next five years with the principal aim of reducing poverty and improving the health status of the population. It comes at a time when the Government of Rwanda has shifted its focus towards sustainable development through the implementation of its PRSP and is embarking on the policy of decentralisation.

There have been reported shortages in both the regulated and unregulated workforce in New Zealand, in particular of medical practitioners, nurses in primary care, mental health professionals, allied and primary health professionals, M?ori and Pacific practitioners, and support workers. There is also an ongoing issue of a maldistribution of workers between rural and urban locations. In the future, the constraints on labour supply in New Zealand will necessitate a much greater focus on growing the health workforce and improving the performance and productivity of the available workforce. The area in which there has been the most consistent investment in workforce development since the 1990s is mental health.

The core objective of the plan is national, comprehensive treatment and care for HIV/AIDS with equal access to services, long-term commitment, improvement of Rwanda’s general health services infrastructure beyond HIV/AIDS, and financial transparency. The approach for implementation will involve service integration with existing health system infrastructure, community mobilization, linkage between treatment and care and prevention, multi-country procurement economies of scale, and rapid scale-up and iterative learning based on “Collaboratives” model. The plan vision is increased longevity and improved quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS in Rwanda.

Accurate, detailed and up-to-date manpower data is a prerequisite for human resource (HR) management. This Technical Brief describes how the Ministry of Health (MoH), with support from HLSP, conducted a human resource mapping exercise of all public health staff in Kenya, and discusses the implications of the findings. The aim is to demonstrate the many practical uses of human resource data – data which is not too complex to collect. [abstract]

This document is a combined Human Resources Development Plan and Human Resources Strategic Plan for the health and social welfare sector of Lesotho. The Development Plan is presented in Chapters 2 through 5, and the Strategic Plan is presented in Chapter 6. The essential difference between the two is that the HR Development Plan represents a technical assessment of the total labor supply and training requirements for the sector in the absence of any budget or production constraints. It reflects a technical assessment of what is needed and what should be produced and financed if we faced no constraints.