Assessing national medicines policies: a protocol for systematic review of access to medicine assessment metrics and indicators

Introduction Efforts to improve access to essential medicines globally include the implementation and assessment of national medicine policies. Although existing assessment tools may identify gaps, they do not link these to health system functions and policy priority areas in a way that facilitates decision-making. This systematic review aims to identify and map out existing indicators assessing essential medicines policies; assess their strengths and limitations and understand the parameters required to develop a new instrument for assessing access to medicines in a way that better supports decision makers in identifying and addressing the gaps in their national medicine policies.Methods and analysis This systematic review is guided by the updated Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocol. Eligible studies will be identified across scholarly databases (MEDLINE, Embase and Scopus) and grey literature using relevant subject headings and text words. Title, abstract screening and full-text screening will be conducted by two independent reviewers. Indicators or assessment tools focused on the performance of national medicine policies with respect to improving access to essential medicines will be eligible. Data will be extracted using a pretested data abstraction form. Findings will be reported in the form of a descriptive narrative. This study will provide insights into the relevance of existing indicators and tools for assessing access to essential medicines policies. This review will also discuss the opportunities for the development of a new instrument for the assessment of national medicines policies in a way that better supports decision makers to improve access to essential medicines.Ethics and dissemination This systematic review does not require ethics approval as it only aims to synthesise evidence from the literature. Findings will be disseminated to key health stakeholders including researchers and global and public health organisations and published in a peer-review journal. This protocol has been registered on PROSPERO (CRD42023493052).