What can intersectoral governance do to strengthen the health and care workforce?

Structures and mechanisms to improve the education, employment and retention of health and care workers

2 April 2023
 | Technical document
What can intersectoral governance do to strengthen the health and care workforce?
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Overview

This policy brief was prepared by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies for the Fifth Global Forum on Human Resources for Health.

Towards an evidence-informed statement of intent: key messages on intersectoral solutions to workforce issues

The COVID-19 pandemic showed the capacity of different sectors to come together to achieve remarkable outcomes. The lessons generated are key to informing post-pandemic health systems policy. They offer powerful evidence on how best to work across sectors to educate, employ and retain a sustainable health and care workforce to deliver on the ambitions of universal health coverage, health security and the Sustainable Development Goals.

If governments are to take forward the policies and practices that worked, they should know the following.

  1. Providing political leadership from the top can set an agenda for health and care workforce development across the whole-of-government and the whole-of-society
  2. Making intersectoral collaboration effective means sustained investment in relationships with key sectors and strategies that build trust
  3. Countries need to strengthen intersectoral governance mechanisms to make them work for the health and care workforce agenda
  4. The health and care sector needs to develop reliable data and forecasting if other sectors are to take it seriously.
  5. Governments need to change the investment narrative for the health and care sector and spell out the co-benefits for other sectors of investment in the health and care workforce

  • Policy brief 1  (draft) What did the COVID-19 pandemic teach us about future workforce development? Policies and practices to recruit, retain, reskill and support health and care workers
  • Policy brief 2: What can intersectoral governance do to strengthen the health and care workforce? Structures and mechanisms to improve the education, employment and retention of health and care workers
  • Policy brief 3: What steps can improve and promote investment in the health and care workforce? Enhancing efficiency of spending and rethinking domestic and international financing

 

 

WHO Team
Health Workforce (HWF)
Editors
World Health Organization / European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
Number of pages
36
Copyright
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO