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Are Sustainable Health Workforces Possible? Issues and a Possible Remedy

Author

Listed:
  • Gareth H Rees

    (Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Universidad ESAN, Lima 33, Peru)

  • Rosemary James

    (Institute for Global Health, University College, London WC1E 6BT, UK)

  • Levan Samadashvili

    (Innovations and Reforms Center, Tbilisi 0198, Georgia)

  • Cris Scotter

    (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2400 Copenhagen, Denmark)

Abstract

The 2020–2022 period of the global COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fact that many countries health systems had inadequate health workforce availability. This is despite sustainable health workforces being critical to health service and healthcare delivery, an acknowledgement that drove the significant investment and focus on health workforce development over the previous two decades. As such, this review article discusses health workforce governance and planning, notes its weaknesses, and identifies some of the barriers to the implementation of health workforce policy making and planning and the achievement of sustainable health workforces. Important is the recognition that health workforce planning is long-term in nature, while health workforce decision-making processes are dominated by political processes that have much shorter time frames. The article concludes by offering the approach of backcasting to overcome this dichotomy.

Suggested Citation

  • Gareth H Rees & Rosemary James & Levan Samadashvili & Cris Scotter, 2023. "Are Sustainable Health Workforces Possible? Issues and a Possible Remedy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-14, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3596-:d:1069639
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Barbazza, Erica & Langins, Margrieta & Kluge, Hans & Tello, Juan, 2015. "Health workforce governance: Processes, tools and actors towards a competent workforce for integrated health services delivery," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(12), pages 1645-1654.
    2. M. Ángeles López-Cabarcos & Analía López-Carballeira & Carlos Ferro-Soto, 2020. "New Ways of Working and Public Healthcare Professionals’ Well-Being: The Response to Face the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-9, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Rees, Gareth H & Willis, Graham & Scotter, Cris, 2025. "Health workforce planning should be strategy or policy-driven: From linear forecasts to normative futures," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).

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