These benchmarks provide a stepwise guidance for Unani medicine, against which its actual practice can be compared and evaluated. With the increasing use of Unani medicine in clinical settings worldwide, there is an urgent need for benchmarks for the practice of Unani medicine to ensure its safety, quality and effectiveness. These benchmarks can serve as a reference to national authorities to establish or strengthen regulatory standards to ensure qualified practice of Unani medicine and to assure patient safety. It describes models of practice and the practice profile of providers, and provides consensus to practitioners, professional organizations, regulators, health system managers and patients on how the services should be organized. This document will join WHO benchmarks for the training of Unani providers and the public in general. This document is structured in five parts: Background; Requirements for practice in Unani medicine; Procedures of regimented therapies; Safety in Unani medicine practice (emphasizes the key elements for the safe practice); and Health information management systems (guidance on management of the information system). These five parts constitute a complete set of benchmarks for the practice of Unani medicine.

By setting norms and standards, these benchmarks help to address the gap between the increased demands and the uncertified delivery of Unani medicine services. It offers a useful reference point to evaluate Unani medicine service providers, which will benefit policy-makers, health workers, education providers and the public in general.