Creating a sustainable health workforce implies strong human resource strategies integrated into workforce planning, with strategies that include greater incorporation and planning skills needs, skill mix and moving towards advanced roles. Therefore, it is crucial that at local, national, and EU levels, policy-makers and competent authorities make sure that the health facilities have the necessary nursing workforce, highly qualified and motivated, to provide safe and high quality healthcare services. Having a good and optimal cooperation at European level in the appropriate planning for this sufficient, motivated and highly qualified nursing workforce, part of the healthcare and public health workforce, is essential to minimise the gaps between the needs and the supply of the ecosystem workforce, and guide EU Member States in scaling-up innovative workforce composition models. When it comes to nurses, the EFN has developed its Matrix 3+1 to guide us all through this endeavour. It is our compass impacting patient outcomes.
The Expert group on European Health Workforce meeting on 22 November 2016, in Brussels, made it clear that a good outcome depends on the engagement of the stakeholders’ in the dialogue with the EU key policy & decision makers, and that it is key to listen and engage frontline. As the biggest group of the healthcare professions, the nurses are eager to bring their expertise into the political debate. Now it is up to the Commission and Member States to listen, to be open, to create an effective and outcome oriented stakeholder engagement.
Linked to Workforce planning & forecasting, the OECD took this opportunity to present its feasibility study on the international survey of health workers’ skills which will help the EU Member States in policy-decisions. Added value: Skill mismatch especially for doctors and nurses – under-skilled and over-skilled to be measured (PIACC Survey 2012). As regards the skills of health professionals, European cooperation is crucial, and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and lifelong learning should be seen as a long-term investment and not as a cost (this time EPSU and HOSPEEM words). No question that the social partners play a crucial role, together with other organisations such as regulators and professional associations. Therefore, it is key to create new and innovative solutions to CPD. Within the context of the ‘New Skills Agenda for Europe’, it is essential to work in integrated care systems and find solutions on how to ensure that young people have the skills and how to close the skills gabs. It is all about job opportunities! Therefore, the EFN is eager to work on a “Blueprint for sectoral cooperation on skills“, together with the social partners and stakeholders to making skills and qualification more visible. This is not new for EFN (see all work done with DG GROW), but DG EMPL and DG CONNECT need to be more sensitive to the needs of frontline!
Finally, on the study “Healthcare assistants in Europe – study on the desirability and feasibility of a Common Training Framework”, the outcomes presented show that there is a huge diversity in education and tasks, in municipalities, in regions, in Member States and logically at EU level. The CONTEC studies showed this already! Member States use different occupational titles, creating a lot of confusion in data collection, as well as different tasks, knowledge and competencies. It is therefore extremely difficult to get comparable data. So, we are not at all convinced the Joint Questionnaire EUROSTAT-WHO-OECD will solve this as Healthcare Assistants (HCAs) are put under the category nurses! Therefore, the EFN and EPSU made it very clear that the principle on HCAs should be accepted first before moving on. The EFN also expressed concerns that currently DG GROW should focus on its priorities and deliver on these. Lets get the Directive 55 and Article 31 first implemented. Let’s create legal clarity on Article 31 so transposition can be made not only into national legislation but also towards the nursing curriculum! We need to make sure every nurse student coming out of a nursing schools is a EU Nurse! Before doing other things, like creating Common training platforms, let us finish first compliance!