Health workforce planning should be strategy or policy-driven: From linear forecasts to normative futures

Gareth H Rees, Graham Willis and Cris Scotter

Health Policy, 2025, vol. 161, issue C

Abstract: Health workforce planning (HWP) remains persistently ineffective, a weakness that was starkly exposed during the pandemic and amplified in today’s ongoing health permacrisis. Despite the development of increasingly sophisticated workforce models and planning techniques, outcomes continue to fall short. We argue that a central reason lies in how the HWP problem is framed: the dominant reliance on linear, forward-looking forecasting methods constrains both the scope of planning and the relevance of its outputs.

Keywords: Health workforce planning; Normative backcasting; Systems thinking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:161:y:2025:i:c:s0168851025001952

DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2025.105440

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