Analyzing India's National Health Workforce Plan: Key Components

This report highlights the importance of a productive health workforce plan, focusing on its implications and methodologies. It examines the success of planning procedures in balancing supply and demand, advocating a Six-Step Methodology for effective workforce planning. The report includes a detailed environmental scan of India, addressing scopes and methods, along with issues pertaining to the proposed plan. Recommendations are provided to minimize or address these issues, emphasizing the need for reliable health workforce data and strategies to develop a novel workforce. The analysis covers various factors influencing health workforce planning, including demographic, economic, technological, socio-political, and demographic conditions, along with an analysis of workforce profile data and relevant literature to support issue identification and recommendations. The document also refers to India's national health-based policy and its impact on workforce planning.

Running head: National Health Workforce
NATIONAL HEALTH WORKFORCE PLAN
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:

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Executive summary
The prime focus of this particular report highlights the significance of productive health
workforce plan and its implications to elaborate wide-ranging classification and certain
methodologies. Additionally, it also examines the potential extent up to which such planning
procedures receive success to reach a core balance between necessary supplies and overrated
demands. A selected integrated approach has been categorically mentioned adopting a Six-Step
Methodology pertaining to constructive workforce planning. This approach would remarkably
aid in proper delivery of multiple healthcare oriented projects by considering the unique features
desired in the specified workforce and also the total count of the concerned workforce. This
report, in addition, also depicts the chosen nation’s detailed environmental scan along with its
scopes and methods. Finally, it also comprises of certain issues pertaining to the proposed aim
and suggested a few most probable recommendations with explanatory details to minimise or
address the issues successively.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
The rationale for selecting India..................................................................................................3
Development of Health workforce plan..........................................................................................4
A detailed description of the planning.........................................................................................5
Preparation of Environmental Scan.................................................................................................7
Scan Methodology.......................................................................................................................8
India's national health-based policy.............................................................................................8
Analysis of workforce profile data..................................................................................................9
Rationale....................................................................................................................................11
Critical analysis and synthesis of relevant literature to support issue identification.....................11
Issues to be addressed................................................................................................................11
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
Reference list.................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
In general, the inadequate precise health workforce plan has significantly led to certain
imbalances and disparity that have threatened the very abilities of healthcare settings to obtain
their desired objectives (Rees et al., 2018). Some of the most prominent human resource aspects
which are not able to deliver effective health interventions could be restricted production
capacity, demographic disparity, poor skills, health workers emigration and many more. This
issue even has the potential to cause tremendous disproportion in healthcare systems particularly
in low as well as low-medium income countries. This problem has reportedly been emerging that
has eventually become a vital obstacle in achieving health-oriented objectives especially in low
and also in middle income based countries. Additionally, these countries encounter varied public
economic constraints pertaining to health provision. All these reasons have coherently directed
mass attention towards the sole objective that will develop systems that will be more responsive
and also reactive to the very requirements and population expectations by means of providing
proficient health planners. With a chronological and organized method, these planners’ sole duty
will be to monitor and regulate the human resources in this very sector (Lopes, Almeida &
Almada-Lobo, 2015). Therefore, this particular piece of the report would analyse a potent health
workforce planning for a lower middle-income nation like India.
The rationale for selecting India
It is of utmost significance to have reliable and many comprehensive data pertaining to the health
workforce in order to implement new strategies to develop a novel workforce for any nation.
However, routine information and data sources regarding the Indian health workforce is not too
reliable and often quite fragmentary (Bhattacharyya et al., 2016). Also, as there is an enormous
population rate in India, being a lower middle income based country. Furthermore, their HR
systems tend to account for a considerable portion of their recurrent expenses resulting in
insufficient HR training and regulations, management distribution and their implications. These
issues further enhance due to the shortage of skill mixes, weak managerial infrastructures (Rao,
Shahrawat & Bhatnagar, 2016).

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Development of Health workforce plan
Formulating a stern, effective and most importantly approachable health workforce is highly
solicited both in case of developed as well in the developing nations (Segal & Bolton, 2009). A
constructive health setting in the near future is needed typically to harbour the constantly varying
social as well as medical intervention environments. Developing a well-equipped health
workforce in India will likely provide the following benefits.
o Refined problem identification.
o Data and methodologies providing a comprehensive understanding of varied systems as
influenced by social environments.
o Quick response formulation.
Firstly, chalking an action plan out prior to furnishing the workforce plan will aid managing the
workforce with efficacy. The method emphasised there will be an Integrated Workforce
Planning to ensure a high quality of health-oriented services. The correct form of planning will
simultaneously provide an incredible opportunity to critically point the required services,
generate innovative approaches to get the mentioned services delivered and bringing proficient
workforce by making them utilise their best skills and competencies (Lund, Tomlinson & Patel,
2016). Health workforce planning is never regarded as a technical process (Lund, Tomlinson &
Patel, 2016) rather demographic alteration significantly drive variances in any health threat to
which the workforce must respond. Following a “six-step procedure” a systematic and feasible
approach will be formulated ensuring high quality pertaining to patient care, efficacies,
productivity. This integratedplanning would take both the existing and also the future health
service demands into consideration.

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A detailed description of the planning
Figure 1: Integrated Health Workforce Planning
(Source: Lund, Tomlinson & Patel, 2016)
Plan defining: In this planning, the planner will solely identify the basics purpose of their
implementation and its future scopes. A few concerned people responsible for making the plan
happen will be selected. Additionally, there would be apparent ownership of the plan. It is
however also quite significant to consider other members needed to execute the planning
procedure. To obtain the same, a checklist will be made to gather relative information concisely
in place. The checklist would include:
 Purpose. Scope. Ownership.

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Mapping service change: This very step focuses chiefly on the service redesigning process due
to economic constraints, needs to increase productivity, patients’ choice responses, more
advancement in therapies and so on (Kapp, Latham & Ford-Latham, 2016). Planners should be
aware of the existing budgeting and their outcomes. They must also identify specific workforce
that might assist or disrupt each reconfiguration. Finally, the rationale for the effectiveness of the
preferred model needs to be given.To execute the same, another checklist will be created with
the following:
 Benefits of service changes. Supporters/Constraints. Working models.
Workforce requirement: Post foundation, planners should coherently determine the workforce
skills, the category and assessing the total count of workers. This workforce demand must also
consider the upcoming challenges that might crop up. The checklist for this step would possess: Analysis of activities. Types and Numbers. Functionality.
Workforce Availability: It involves explaining the considerable areas and determining any
identified problem originating either from age profile or specific turnover rates (Kapp, Latham &
Ford-Latham, 2016). Practicalities should be chiefly focussed on. This includes:
 The existing workforce. Forecasting. Options pertaining to varying supply.
Implementation, monitoring and plan refreshing: After getting the action plan properly
developed, periodic review is solicited. This includes measuring the plan’s success along with
critically identifying any unwanted consequences of service reconfigurations in order to implant
necessary corrective actions.
Action plan

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Planners must sort certain policies out to acquire, develop, determine, reward and above all
disseminate the new workforce to resolve any service-oriented gaps. Furthermore, planners must
include problems assessment regarding clinical engagements. Their practices must be adequate
to enable any further managerial changes. They need to estimate any prospective impact of those
policies in terms of minimising any gap by implementing modified resources and other new
authority procedures.
Preparation of Environmental Scan
Environmental scanning is regarded as a systematic and methodical survey that critically
interprets relevant data with the sole intent of identifying a wide variety of external opportunities
and also potential threats (Nancarrow et al., 2017). This tool remarkably assists the planners to
design effective health-oriented programs to fulfil the very community needs. Although the
concept of “environmental scan”is somewhat undefined and relatively underutilized especially
in public health cares, it is of enormous importance to gather necessary information about the
outside world including prospective competitors (Pepler & Martell, 2019). The very urgency of
environmental scan typically acquires enormous policies pertaining to India’s micro as well as
macro units (Singh & Rahman, 2018)because, in any whichever way, India is still trying to attain
its goals of financial development along with achieving distributional justice. And these can be
mediated through effective national planning (Sircar, 2017). The special analysis must be
formulated pertaining to the opportunities as well as the constraints exerted upon by the planning
authorities of India as would be noted by implementing the new workforce plan for the
upcoming 5 years.This scan practically aims to provide the following:
o Identify potential gaps to facilitate further research analysis or investigation related to the
same.
o To provide the planners with a detailed framework that would potentially guide them across
the project.
o To provide the concerned planners with a national background with pre-existing data and
viable records to make them largely aware of any upcoming or unforeseen opportunity as
well as menace.

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Scan Methodology
o It will be initialised with a desktop review of related journals, articles to gather maximum
information possible. Stakeholders will also be requested to gather additional data to acquire
a more furnished picture of the chosen nation.
o A relevant jurisdictional group might be requested to provide their valued inputs along with
more documentation to be included in their project.
o Information will be collected via multiple databases like PubMed, Scopus, Cinahl, and
Medline and so on.
India's national health-based policy
On March 2017, the 3rd national health-based policy was successively announced after its'
initialisation back in 1983. The prime focus is to provide provision exclusively to every primary
health care unit (Jagranjosh.com, 2019).
Environmental scan necessarily includes the impacts of:
o International conditions.
o National financial conditions: The enhancing number of unauthorized private units
including pharmaceuticals, consumer goods and above all information technology units.
Also, India’s GDP slumping marginally to a 10 year low has been notified. Lastly, emerging
government revenues has remarkably lowered the zeal for innovative approaches (Aithal,
2017).
o Technological conditions: Linear advancements include experienced and skilled IT workers
resulting in multiple entrepreneurial ventures. The impact of artificial intelligence, academic
refinements in robotics has contributed more.
o Socio-political conditions: Whenever it comes to assessing the social changes in India,
considerable high worker count in agricultural and farming is quite noteworthy. Secondly,
less equipped schools where poor children belonging to poverty lines are being sent,
considerably suffer from inadequate teachers, poor infrastructures and above all lack of the
bare minimum education facilities (Aithal, 2017). Also, students belonging to low income
based familieshave records of being forcibly taken out from their institutes to serve daily
family needs.This subsequently accounts for the high range of discrimination that is noted

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against females in the academic system. Pertaining to the political determinants, the
restriction of the Indian Government to foreign investments deserves special mention.
Secondly, multiple rural votes are constantly being brought owing to subsidy money.
However, the financial prosperity of India will never be sustained without enormous
education investment that strongly promotes higher education along with necessary public
spending. Furthermore, certain contradictory policies and relevant regulations are being set
by the political forces simultaneously.
Demographic conditions: Demographicdeterminants play a gigantic role for multiple planners to
design their health workforce proficiently. This also happens in any general organisational
planning.
Population: India’s population is approximately 1.2 billion (Reddy, 2015).
Gender
Nearly 656 million of the Indian population are male while nearly 615 million Indian populations
constitute females.
Geography: Geographical determinants that exert their enormous impact include development
particularly in roads, ports, mining and also urban housing areas. Additionally, opportunities
pertaining to construction including well-developed and refined areas strongly appeal to able
business to invest wisely in the near future.
Competition: Rivalries include global shares and net profits including Baxter and robotics
requiring continuous servicing. Financial reform includes high shares in aviation and
broadcasting, power industries and supermarket chains.
Analysis of workforce profile data
In general, any constructive health workforce includes an amalgam of skilled people which
categorically involves skilled physicians, able staff nurses, pharmacists and also dentists. This
also includes support staff as well as management workforce. Additionally, it also includes
laboratory-based health workers, health management oriented workers and many more. This
corresponds to the categorical health worker classification by WHO guidelines (Who.int,

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2019).Such guidelines will be strictly adhered to by the new health workforce unit to avail the
most common information pertaining to the same. Such classification would also be extremely
significant for wide-ranging effortsto categorically synthesize as well as fixing certain figures
including all the healthcare professionals.
Category Age Sex Geographical location
Physicians Ranging between 25-40
years.
Both male, as well as
female physicians will
be categorically
included.
Chosen physicians
belonging to multiple
units like oncology,
endocrinology, child
physician, ENTs,
hepatologists,
dermatologists would be
allocated with their
respective
responsibilities in rural
regions where
healthcare facilities are
poor.
Registered nurses. Ranging between 21-35
years.
Both male and also
female nurses will be
selected through
personal interviews.
Skilled nurses will be
subsequently allocated
in different rural
locations to serve the
needy individuals who
are incapable of
affording the bare
minimum health
necessities.
Dentists Ranging between 25-40
years.
This will also include
both males as well as
female dentists.
Competent dentists will
be categorically posted
in varied locations with
weak infrastructure and
inadequate medical
facilities.

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Laboratory workers Ranging from 20-35
years.
Both male and female. Laboratory
professionals will be
placed in primary rural
health units for
conducting the varied
routine analysis of
multiple patients’
samples.
Pharmacists Ranging from 25-40
years.
Include male as well as
female pharmacists.
They will be placed
both in urban as well as
rural sections to supply
affordable medication to
the commoners and
low-income people.
Rationale
The classification will be categorically allocated in different geographical locations to ensure
homogenous distribution of their potent services. Secondly, young qualified members will have
the zeal to explore more with all their diligent work and abilities. Gender biases will not be
implemented during the selection of the productive health workforce.
Critical analysis and synthesis of relevant literature to support issue
identification
Issues to be addressed
o The consistent variation in public health-related priorities is a potential issue that the novel
workforce might coherently address.
o Secondly, most of India’s rural primary health units lack the bare minimum infrastructure
needed to conduct health services (Hindustantimes.com, 2019). This is regarded as a major
gap and the new constructive workforce with their diligent efforts can minimise these issues
significantly. This also includes the poor technological architecture of those rural healthcare
units (Rathod et al., 2017).