National health workforce accounts: a handbook

Overview

A health workforce (HWF) of adequate size and skill mix, as well as required teachers and trainers, are critical to the attainment of any population health goal. This includes the achievement of universal health coverage (UHC) (WHO 2017c) and the health-related targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Yet countries globally are affected by health workforce challenges of a multifaceted nature, such as difficulties in the education and training, deployment, performance and retention of their health workforces (WHO 2016c). A suboptimal allocation of health workers is one of the main challenges that directly influences the availability, accessibility, quality and performance of national health services (McPake et al. 2014). In the worst case, this may leave populations with inadequate access to the health services they need. It is clear that efforts to achieve the SDGs and UHC are thwarted by these HWF challenges.

Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners developed the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030 (GSHRH), which sets out the policy agenda to ensure a health workforce that is fit for purpose to attain the targets of UHC and the SDGs (WHO 2016c).