The EFN President, Elizabeth Adams, and the EFN Secretary General, Paul De Raeve, met the EU Commissioner for Health, Vytenis Andriukaitis, on 26 February 2018, in Brussels, to discuss the position of nurses and nursing in the EU, especially in relation to the future work of the European Commission on the European Pillar of Social Rights.
Informed on the key priorities for nurses and the nursing profession, including education (DIR55); Advanced Nurse Practitioners; eHealth; nurse (e-)prescribing; wages; nursing shortage; workload; AMR; vaccination; medication reconciliation; and data collection/nursing research, the Commissioner expressed his concerns towards the challenging times for nurses, and strong support to do something for the profession, namely focussing for example, as first step, on: vaccination/vaccine hesitancy, health literacy, education and training of healthcare professionals. This could be done through the European Social Pillar (Principle 16) & the European Semester, and by implementing new tools where the nurses (and the Healthcare Professionals) are key in the debate.
It is important to look at legislation for nurses. The European Semester could be used to tackle some of the priorities. This is key for the 3 million nurses the EFN represents at EU level, and for the 6 million nurses in the European Union struggling every day to stay in the profession.