ABSTRACT
Strengthening health workforce contributes to several sustainable development goals, including employment, economic growth, and equity, besides improving population health. The World Health Organisation recommended national and local health workforce policies focused on four dimensions: availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality (AAAQ). This chapter, using registration councils’ and Periodic Labour Force Survey data, presents the latest evidence on availability, accessibility, and quality of health workforce in India and identifies persisting and emerging challenges and priority areas for policy implications. The chapter highlights that while the number of health workforce in India falls short of the recommended levels for achieving universal health coverage, the quality of health workforce remains an important concern particularly in rural areas, the private sector, and a number less developed states. Public health system needs to enhance its capacity to absorb an increased number of health workforce. Although India has one of the largest medical and nursing education system in the world, the number of annual medical and nursing graduates per 100,000 persons in India is much lower compared with those in OECD and in many South Asian countries. An increased investment in the medical and nursing education system, along with policy framework to improve the quality of health workforce, is required to strengthen the availability, accessibility, and quality of health workforce.
