NURSES CORNER

Increased Investment in Nursing is Key to Achieving Health for All
Increased Investment in Nursing is Key to Achieving Health for All

Doha, Qatar; Geneva, Switzerland; 13 November 2018 - A new report published today by the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) Nursing and UHC 2020 Forum at the WISH Conference 2018 states that countries that invest in and develop their nursing and midwifery workforce can achieve a rapid, cost-effective expansion of high-quality UHC.

The report, co-authored by Lord Nigel Crisp, Co-Chair of Nursing Now, Professor Sharon Brownie, Dean of the School of Nursing at The Aga Khan University, with support from Dr Charlotte Refsum, Lead for Evidence and Research, Nursing Now and Global Healthcare Clinical Manager, KPMG, argues that unless nursing and midwifery is rapidly expanded and developed, there is no possibility of achieving the World Health Assembly goal of a billion more people benefiting from Universal Health Coverage in five years.

Entitled Nursing and Midwifery: The Key to the Rapid and Cost-Effective Expansion of High-Quality Universal Health Coverage, the report includes new data on public perceptions of nurses and midwives in seven countries. The data shows strong public backing for nurses playing a greater role in health services and strengthens the report’s further argument that nurses are in pole position to manage the defining health challenges of modern times.

“The world is facing a shortfall of 18 million health workers needed to deliver and sustain universal health coverage by 2030.” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, writing in the foreword of the report. “More than half of that shortfall is nurses and midwives. This report makes a persuasive set of arguments for investing in nursing and midwifery as part of a multidisciplinary, people-centered workforce.”

Speaking at the launch of the report, Lord Nigel Crisp said, “To date, discussions on the delivery of UHC have focused on financing and access to service without sufficient consideration of investment in the health workforce. Our report shows that by redesigning health services at a national level to make better use of nurses and midwives, countries can achieve high quality, cost effective Universal Health Coverage and maximise their existing human resources.”

Building on the success of the Nursing Now campaign, which aims to empower nurses worldwide and has generated support in 67 countries since its launch in February 2018, the report breaks down the argument for investing in nursing and midwifery into the following headlines:

Rapid expansion The report suggests that countries can achieve rapid expansion of Universal Health Coverage by adopting a strategy that combines investment in the workforce with changes in service delivery and practice. In practice, this means enabling nurse and midwives to work to their full potential through the creation of more nurse-led clinics, more specialist nurses and more midwifery services.
Cost-effective expansion Evidence in the report shows that cost-effective expansion of Universal Health Coverage will heavily depend on enabling and training the existing workforce, including nurses and midwives, to work more effectively. In addition to the examples listed in Rapid Expansion, there is enormous potential for nurses to expand their scope of practice through task-sharing. One study cited in the report estimated that advanced practice nurses can complete approximately 70 percent of a GP’s workload.
High quality expansion There is evidence of the impact that nurses and a patient-centered, holistic approach have on quality, including studies that show that physicians and nurses generally achieve equivalent health outcomes for long-term NCD management.