Building the workforce needed to deliver primary health care in the Western Pacific

Across the Western Pacific, countries are strengthening primary health care (PHC) as the foundation for achieving universal health coverage. Translating this commitment into health services people can access requires a workforce organized to deliver care that is comprehensive, continuous and coordinated.

Over 500 participants from over 60 countries and areas joined the webinar series, “Building the Health Workforce for Primary Health Care,” organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Western Pacific in April and June 2026. Discussions brought together policy-makers, health workforce planners, educators and frontline practitioners that face this challenge in their respective roles and institutions.

“The health needs of populations across the Western Pacific Region are changing and expanding. The PHC workforce needs to be designed and built to have the right mix of skills and with a team-based approach,” said Dr Kidong Park, Director of Programme Management at WHO Western Pacific.

How can countries design health workforces around people’s needs?

Many health systems start their workforce planning with existing professional categories, staffing norms or facility structures. Dr Samir Garg, Technical Officer for Health Workforce Policy at WHO Western Pacific, highlighted that the PHC workforce needs to be designed intentionally, based on the functions and tasks that need to be performed at the PHC level. These functions include health promotion, disease prevention, first-contact care, chronic disease management, referral, rehabilitation and essential public health functions. The PHC team must be designed in a way that can ensure a continuum of care for its entire population through their life course.

In Hong Kong SAR, China, this shift in thinking has shaped how district-based PHC is being organized. Rather than building services around facilities or hospital hierarchies, reform has centred on people and families, with family doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and community-based support working in integrated teams, as Professor Sophia Chan of the University of Hong Kong described.

The example also illustrates how PHC workforce reform involves not only increasing numbers, but expanding and clarifying roles. In Hong Kong SAR, nurses have taken on a stronger part in prevention, chronic disease follow-up, self-management support and counselling within district-based service networks.

Patient journey analysis is one practical tool for this kind of planning, tracing how people move through the health system and understanding where they could be underserved and which functions are missing across the continuum of care, explained Dr Shogo Kubota, Coordinator for Service Delivery and Quality at WHO Western Pacific.

What does it take to turn a workforce plan into real reform?

Even well-designed workforce models can face challenges at implementation. Regulations around scope of practice and financing structures often determine whether new models get off the ground, regardless of the technical quality of the plan. Professor Stephanie Topp of James Cook University noted that factors related to governance, financing and political economy can influence rollout, particularly in remote and low-resource settings.

Participants also reflected the same concerns around financing team-based care models and ensuring fair recognition and remuneration. These require political commitment, multisectoral coordination and sustained investment in governance.

Why do health worker retention efforts in rural and remote areas fall short? Which retention strategies have worked?

Retaining health workers deployed in rural and remote areas is also a key challenge. For workers in hard-to-reach settings, what makes a difference is having clear roles, access to supervision, visible career pathways, appropriate incentives and reliable links to referral-level support. Without those conditions, health workers posted in these settings tend to leave.

Indonesia has been working on this through a national policy reform. Mr Laode Musafin, former Director of Health Workforce Planning at Indonesia’s Ministry of Health, described efforts to align health worker production and deployment more closely with actual health service needs, using workforce planning tools, data dashboards and a joint committee between the Ministries of Health and Higher Education to coordinate the pipeline from training to placement.

In an archipelagic setting with dispersed communities and limited resources such as Papua New Guinea, what has worked is providing support that fits these conditions, according to Dr Kenneth Gill Oswyn of the Milne Bay Provincial Health Authority. This includes field supervision and mentorship visits following training, improved funding for outreach services, and community engagement through ward development committees. The province is also working toward a village health volunteer policy, with WHO support.

How can primary health care systems stay connected to the broader health system?

Primary health care teams need to be close to communities, but they should also be connected to hospitals, specialist services, public health functions and community-based workers.

China has been building those connections through medical alliances and telemedicine links to coordinate functions across community health stations, township health centres and county hospitals. As Dr Xiaoyun Liu of Peking University described, these arrangements have changed how skills are developed and how care is organized at the community level, with workforce strengthening embedded in broader service delivery reforms.

“Strengthening the primary health care workforce requires stewardship and coordination across government. Ministries of health, higher education and local governments have a say in how the health workforce is shaped. They all need to collaborate to introduce and implement reforms. The country experiences shared in this series offer practical inspiration for that process,” emphasized Lluis Vinyals Torres, Director of Division of Health Systems and Services at WHO Western Pacific.  

WHO Western Pacific remains committed to supporting countries and partners in strengthening health workforces that can deliver on the promise of primary health care.

WHO Western Pacific team supporting health workforce: (front, right) Dr Kidong Park, Director of Programme Management; (front, left) Mr Lluis Vinyals Torres, Director of Health Systems and Services; (back, left to right) Dr Samir Garg, Technical Officer (Health Workforce Policy); Dr Midori Anami Akimoto, Nursing Officer; Ms Ruikan Yang, Technical Officer; Dr Annie Chu, Team Coordinator of Health Policy and Strategy, Ms Rocel Ann Junio, Communications Consultant; Jisselle Chua, Executive Associate. © WHO