Abstract
The steering committee of health policies and strategies development for health manpower was appointed by the National Health System Reform Committee in May 2003. The committee secretarial tasks done by the Health System Research Institute and researcher team. The mission of the steering committee is to develop and present policies and strategies of health manpower under the changing situations of the Thai health care systems and its context. The secretarial team is carried out process were the documentary reviews and structured interviews, including various sub- committee meetings. The spotlight of the contextual changes in all aspects are described in the introductory chapter which focus on issues that needed carefully consideration. The main report describes results and recommendations with major principles for developing policies and strategies on health manpower. Three main topics have been discussed and concluded, these are:Components to be achieved on policies and strategies for health manpower;Initial plans for further action and;Short- term and long- term mechanisms for system development on health manpower should be based on concert efforts of various organisations. Such mechanisms are to be functional units that linked with accumulated knowledge and national policy development. By summary, the future proposals for action should be pragmatic and relevant to the governmental policy toward the national policy on universal coverage. Under the contextual changes, health manpower policies and strategies should be grounded on the "demand driven" idea and responsive to basic and specific health needs of the entire population.
