National health workforce accounts: a handbook

Overview
A health workforce 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 and the health-related targets of the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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. 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. 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
health workforce 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).