Indian Public Health Standards, 2022: Volume III (Health and Wellness Centre-Primary Health Centre)

The Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) are a set of specifications for the planning and maintenance of public healthcare infrastructure in the country. The standards aim to enable the Indian public health sector in providing affordable and accessible health services. Initially published in 2007 under the National Rural Health Mission, the standards were first revised in 2012. Introduction of new initiatives and programmes since 2012 such as the National Urban Health Mission in 2013, the National Health Policy in 2017 and Ayushman Bharat in 2018 necessitated further revision of the IPHS. In addition to outlining minimum ‘essential’ standards for the functioning of public health facilities, the IPHS 2022 set forth norms to meet a ‘desirable’ level of functioning. This revised edition of the IPHS, published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, was released on April 16, 2022. It spans four volumes covering standards for Sub District Hospital and District Hospital (Volume I); Community Health Centre (Volume II); Health and Wellness Centre-Primary Health Centre (Volume III); and Health and Wellness Centre-Sub Health Centre (Volume IV). As per the orders of the Government of India, existing Sub Health Centres (SHC), Primary Health Centres (PHC) and Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHC) are being transformed into Health and Wellness Centres (HWC) under Ayushman Bharat. This 128-page volume includes norms for Health and Wellness Centres-Primary Health Centres (HWC-PHC) which provide primary healthcare services. Volume III contains eight sections: Background (Section 1); Introduction (Section 2); Objectives of IPHS for HWC-PHC (Section 3); Type/Categories of PHC/UPHC (Section 4); Population Norms for HWC-PHC (Section 5); General Principles of IPHS (Section 6); Criteria for IPHS Compliance (Section 7); and Service Provision (Section 8). The section on service provision covers standards and norms for infrastructure, human resources, medicines, diagnostics, equipment, quality assurance and implementation of IPHS.