T.N. constitutes State-level Steering Committee to develop human resources for health strategy

The Government of Tamil Nadu recently constituted a State-level Steering Committee to spearhead the development of a comprehensive Human Resources for Health (HRH) Strategy aimed at strengthening the State’s public healthcare workforce. The move comes under the World Bank-supported Enhanced Health Service Delivery Program (EHSDP).

The committee, chaired by the Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Health and Family Welfare and having the Mission Director of NHM, Tamil Nadu as its member secretary/convenor, has been constituted to ensure systematic planning, coordination and governance of the health workforce. It has 16 members.

The government also gave the nod to the Mission Director of NHM, Tamil Nadu to develop the HRH Strategies for Tamil Nadu.

The EHSDP uses the World Bank’s Program-for-Results model under which funds are released when specific key results are achieved – Disbursement-Linked Indicators. The development and adoption of State Specific HRH Strategies for public health facilities is one of the DLIs. A mandatory requirement, it will help identify gaps in recruitment, capacity building, workforce distribution and retention.

The implementation of the HRH Strategy will ensure states can systematically address workforce gaps and improve availability, skills and retention of health workers across public health facilities. It will be developed and implemented through a three-tiered, graded approach to ensure comprehensive planning, expert guidance and effective execution – Technical Working Groups for micro-level planning, data analysis and drafting; Technical Advisory Group for meso-level review, expert inputs and policy refinement; and State-level Steering Committee for macro-level decision-making, approval and overall governance, according to an order issued by the Health department

Already, the Technical Advisory Group and Technical Working Groups have been constituted under NHM and have been tasked to prepare the technical guidance report and strategy document by coordinating with technical experts and the World Bank, submission of draft strategy recommendations for the review and further approvals by the Steering Committee

The Steering Committee’s responsibilities include providing oversight for the development and implementation of HRH Strategy, ensure convergence across the departments of Finance, Human Resources Management, Education, Labour Welfare and Skills Development, Law and others, strengthen intersectoral collaboration for health workforce planning and development, and ensure HRH strategy is evidence-based, feasible and widely accepted by stakeholders.