During pandemics, the need for healthcare workers increases as more people get sick and need care. At the same time, healthcare workers may fall ill themselves or be placed in quarantine. In addition, the health system still needs to continue to deliver routine services. Governments across the world are trying different solutions to address these problems. One possible solution is to move the care of some patient groups from health workers with higher levels of training to health workers with lower levels of training, often referred to as ‘task shifting’.

Cochrane EPOC has now produced a series of evidence summaries on the following topics:

• Shifting tasks from one type of health worker to another: implementation considerations
• Nurses as substitutes for doctors in primary care: What are the effects?
• Nurses as substitutes for doctors in primary care: implementation considerations
• Lay or community health worker programmes: implementation considerations

You can find these evidence briefs, as well as links to the full reviews here:
/our-reviews/summaries-our-reviews/covid-19-relevant-summaries