Ensuring adequate staffing levels for psychiatrists-narcologists and district psychiatrists-narcologists amid the observed shortage of healthcare personnel across all sectors and burnout among medical workers represents one of the primary pathways to improving the performance of psychoneurological services. Analysis of the new order from the Russian Ministry of Health on the «psychiatry-narcology» profile reveals that the document includes certain measures to strengthen preventive efforts by introducing the position of a medical psychologist in the office for the prevention of substance use disorders. However, in our view, certain provisions of the document require revision in the following directions: transitioning to commonly accepted indicators for labor norms in outpatient care, namely statistical data on population size and its contingents; and excluding staffing numbers from the normative provision for ensuring round-the-clock operations of medical personnel.

psycho-narcological service, labor norms, staffing standards, medical workers.