Development, Objectives and Operation of Return-of-Service Bursary Schemes as an Investment to Build Health Workforce Capacity in South Africa: A Multi-Methods Study.

Despite rigorous research methods, the origins of RoS policies in South Africa could not be established due to poor preservation of institutional memory. Opportunities to monitor the value of public investment into RoS programs are being missed and often the underlying objective of the programs has not been well-specified. Policies were found to have been developed and operate in isolation from other health workforce planning activities and thus may not be maximising their impact as a retention and training tool.