Section 7.11 · Pillar 3 · Workforce, Culture & National Healthcare Transformation
Optimizing the Health Workforce for Universal Health Coverage
National task-shifting and task-sharing policies to close workforce gaps and reduce physician-only bottlenecks.
The issue
To address critical workforce gaps and achieve universal health coverage, Nigeria should adopt national task-shifting and task-sharing policies. All cadres should undergo interprofessional education and competency-based certification, and continuing professional development in multidisciplinary team skills should be mandatory for licensure renewal.
Priority components
What good looks like in this domain, expressed as the components an institution should be able to show.
- 01Enable nurses to lead triage, chronic disease monitoring, and maternal and child health services, including the administration of intravenous medications to improve adherence, patient safety, and outcomes, supported by defined guidelines, protocols, and qualification requirements where current scope of practice does not already permit this
- 02Enable pharmacists to provide immunizations, point-of-care testing, NCD screening, contraceptive services, and medication management at the Primary Health Care level
- 03Enable community health extension workers to conduct nutrition screening and referral under supervision
- 04Establish new advanced practice cadres and legally protect their scope of practice to reduce physician-only bottlenecks
Implementation
What this domain requires in practice: the standard, the pack, the measurement, the tools and the evidence.
Standards
No approved ASQAT standards have been published for this domain yet. The standards layer is in place so that approved statements can be released without restructuring the platform.
Measurement
Measurement specifications for this domain are being developed. Indicator definitions are published only once the numerator, denominator and data source are agreed.
Measurement frameworkResources
Implementation resources for this domain are currently in development. Approved policies, procedures, checklists and tools will be released through the resource library.
Open the libraryAwaiting approved content
Evidence in practice
No approved implementation evidence has been published for this domain yet. Case studies are published only after review of what was measured and how.