Bhore committee

Bhore committee set up by the government of India in 1943 to investigate and recommend improvements to the Indian Public Health system. Under the chairmanship of Sir Joseph Bhore the committee made many landmark recommendations in its final report in 1946.also known in India as Health Survey and Development Committee

It said "If it were possible to evaluate the loss, which this country annually suffers through the avoidable waste of valuable human material and the lowering of human efficiency through malnutrition and preventable morbidity, we feel that the result would be so startling that the whole country would be aroused and would not rest until a radical change had been brought about"

Some of the important recommendations of the Bhore Committee were:

  1. Integration of preventive and curative services to all administrative levels.
  2. Development of Primary Health Centres in 2 stages:
As a short term measure: 1 Primary health centre per 40,000 population, 30 beds,3 Sub centres and 2 medical officers, 4 public health nurses, 1 nurse, 4 midwives, 4 trained dais, 2 sanitary inspectors, 2 health assistants, 1 pharmacist, and 15 class IV employees.
As a long term programme(3 million Plan):Primary health units with a 75 bedded hospital per 10,000 -20,000 population; secondary health units with 650 bedded hospital; regional health units with 2,500 beds.
  3. Major changes in medical education which includes 3 month training in preventive & social medicine to prepare "social physicians".

The committee was instrumental in bringing about the public health reforms related to peripheral health centers in India.

Though most of the recommendations of the committee were not implemented at the time, the committee was a trigger to the reforms that followed.