President’s Message
Dear EFN Members and Colleagues,
We are in the middle of the Belgium EU Presidency, which will run till end of June 2024. Belgium has been leading the European agenda and promoting cooperation among the EU Member States, with the aim to strengthen the European Union and advance in several areas as climate change, economic growth and social cohesion. Several high-level summits and conferences have taken place already, which the EFN has been following very closely, especially on social dialogue, workforce and the future of the EU Health Union. Important decisions still need to be taken before the end of this EU Presidency, which has a huge challenge: the upcoming June 2024 EU elections. Which MEP will end up in Brussels and which Commissioners will lead important files like health, employment and free movement?
Health has been put high on the Belgium EU Presidency, showing over the last months its willingness to have a wide reflection on the EU health agenda for the next 5 years, and keep health high on the EU agenda. At the April EFN General Assembly we had the opportunity to be informed and reflect on its latest developments and the next steps, with Hungary taking over the Belgium EU Presidency from 1st July 2024. It is crucial that the EU Member States keep health high on their political agenda, and make sure that concrete solutions are brought up to the field and provide key answers to the ongoing burden on healthcare systems, as the nursing shortage, aggravated post-COVID-19, is the main challenge related to access of healthcare services, in the hospital and the community sector.
The upcoming EU elections are a key milestone to get nurses’ political message across, namely on education, workforce and quality & safety. With up to 6 million nurses in Europe, they are a significant voting force. This is a good opportunity to make change happen, calling on the EU candidates to invest in nursing education; to ensure optimal wages, fair working conditions and health workforce capacity building; and take national and EU initiatives to stop violence against nurses. It is clear that, more than ever, we need solid actions at EU and national levels to support nurses’ frontline providing care 24/7 to the patients/citizens, and highly qualified nursing workforce ensuring that patient safety and quality of care are maintained. It is vital to investing in nurses and the health and care workforce. The COVID-19 pandemic reaffirmed the value of well prepared and educated nurses which equate to lower mortality rates and better patient outcomes. Only by improving the working conditions and keeping the educational standard in line with the Directive 2013/55/EU we will be able to retain the current nurses and to attract young generation to the nursing profession.
Finally, I would like to thank all the EFN members for their commitment and hard work to make the April EFN General Assembly in Brussels a success, with the European Commission joining us to discuss the Directive 2013/55/EU and the proportionality Directive 2018/958. The EFN members endorsed key policy statements and shared their good practices on ‘newly registered nurses leaving the nursing profession or not practicing nursing after graduation’. The EFN office, the Executive Committee and me personally are committed in safeguarding nurses and the nursing profession in the EU and Europe, and work hard in achieving the best for EFN and its members.
With my warmest regards,
Aristides Chorattas
EFN President
News from EFN
EFN Spring General Assembly
The EFN Members met in Brussels for the EFN 118th General Assembly, which was an opportunity to discuss with the European Commission the strengthening of Directive 2013/55/EU in line with the endorsed EFN Strategic and Operational Lobby Plan (SOLP) 2021-2027. While the last revision of the Professional Qualifications Directive through Directive 2013/55/EU reviewed to a certain extent the harmonised minimum training requirements, no substantial changes were made to such minimum requirements for the professions of nurse responsible for general care. However, the European Commission has delegated powers to introduce possible updates, and commissioned a study (SPARK) for nurses, dentists and pharmacists. The EFN engaged in the SPARK study which led to the revision of Annexe V. The Delegated Act to the Directive 2005/36/EU has been put forward in a public consultation to which EFN responded in Q1 of 2024. The implementation of the delegated act into national legislation and of course into the nurses’ curriculum will be key in the years to come. If an EU country fails to communicate measures that fully transpose the provisions of directives, or doesn’t rectify the suspected violation of EU law, the European Commission may launch a formal infringement procedure. In 2023, we saw 24 such infringement procedures installed related to the Directive 2013/55/EU and the Proportionality Directive 2018/958. The European Commission can bring a Member State to Court which can impose financial penalties. Concerned Ministers are often becoming very nervous about this payment after a long period of complacency!
Furthermore, the EFN members endorsed key EFN Policy Statements related to 1. How to get nurses education more attractive; 2. Safe introduction as newly graduated nurse; 3. Social Dialogue; 4. EU nursing workforce within a global safe staffing level context; 5. Nurse prescribing; and 6. HERA future impact on preparedness.
Next to that, they continued the discussion on Advanced Practice Nurse (APN). The EFN members adopted in 2023 the country-level principles and roadmap for developing APN. Now we need to go a step further by presenting an APN workplan on country level implementation of advanced level nursing practice that will include the principles, the model and the roadmap. Politically speaking, it is important to harmonise APN developments in the EU and collaborate with the European Commission to advance this file. The Belgium EU Presidency could be an important milestone when developing the EU Health Workforce Strategy!
The EFN members were also briefed on the progresses made in the BeWell EU project, in which EFN is a partner to produce, in co-creation, a strategy for the European health ecosystem that has systemic and structural impact on reducing skills shortages, gaps and mismatches, as well as ensuring appropriate quality and levels of skills. BeWell has so far developed the first version of the BeWell Skills Strategy (translated in 8 languages) – Being one of the main outcomes of the project, the strategy aims to be implemented at a local, regional, national, and ultimately at the European level through the Pact for Skills; a Skills Monitor, which goal is to provide an overview of upskilling and reskilling possibilities to empower the digitalisation and ecologicalisation of the health and care sector; and is currently developing a BeWell Learning Platform – that will be available on several languages, providing training courses on digital & green skills, to which EFN has contributed with 2 MOOCs.
The EFN is part of a new 4-years EU project Keepcaring, aiming at (re-) building wellbeing and resilience of the healthcare workforce in EU hospitals and to promote onboarding and staying in the workplace. We are currently negotiating the Grant Agreement.
A new pipeline European Commission (DG Sante – Public Health Programme) project, coordinated by WHO Europe (Maggie Langins and Tomas Zapata) is key for EFN as it focusses on the retention of nurses, including safe staffing levels. It is important to feed in EFN members developments on Safe Staffing Levels and Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) into this new EU project. The EFN Policy Statement on Safe Staffing Levels is key to build resilient healthcare systems in the EU. It will be crucial for the EU politicians and policymakers to take immediate action to improve recruitment and retention of domestically educated nurses, safe staffing levels, APN, and prioritise the welfare of nurses.
Finally, the EFN members shared best practices on ‘newly registered nurses leaving the nursing profession or not practicing nursing after graduation’ as basis input to shaping fit-for-purpose EU policy solutions as the EU Workforce is high on the EU political agenda. The inputs show that nurses leave the profession after 3-5 years after graduation due to low salaries, working conditions & environments like stress and workload, work-life balance.
Belgium EU Presidency
On 1st January 2024, Belgium took over the Presidency of the Council of the EU for 6 months, with priorities to reinforce the health and social agenda. It has been driving progress on the European Health Data Space, on Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, and in developing a strategy to boost the EU’s health and care workforce.
Building on the European Pillar of Social Rights, the Presidency will (hopefully!) strengthen social dialogue, look into fair labour mobility, mental health at work which is key for frontline nurses, and access to sustainable social protection. It will also expand the social dimension of the European Semester, which is important to EFN, especially in long-term care. Since the beginning of the Belgian EU Presidency, the EFN participated in different high-level summits organised by or together with the Belgium EU Presidency, relevant to nurses’ daily work environment, as:
1/ The High-Level event on “Better working conditions for healthcare professionals in the EU” raised awareness on the working conditions of the healthcare professionals in the EU and discussed possible opportunities for action, in which the EFN Secretary General was invited as keynote speaker. Paul stressed the crucial need for the EU politicians and policymakers to take immediate action to focus on developing EU legislation to improve recruitment and retention of domestically educated nurses, and safe staffing levels. Failing to recruit and retain frontline nurses into the nursing workforce will render the EU and Europe ill-prepared for the years ahead. For MEP Dolors Montserrat it is key to take the lessons learned from the pandemic and turn them into policies to build a strong and resilient workforce.
2/ The EFN followed the informal meeting of employment and social affairs ministers (EPSCO) discussing the future strategic agenda of the Union, with specific attention to labour market shortages and access to social protection and social services, as well as the relation between EU social policies, the global agenda and the EU enlargement process. The ministers reminded that it is time to recall the importance of the social dimension of Europe, and to give a new impetus to the implementation of the European pillar of Social Rights. This is the added value of Europe: protect, prepare and strengthen people.
For the EFN, it is key the social dimension of Europe gets strengthened and the European pillar of Social Rights is the perfect mechanism to do so. Therefore, the EFN members agreed to focus on 1. Education; 2. Access to Healthcare; 3. Wages; and 4. Long term care!
3/ Key for the EFN was the OECD High-level Policy Forum on “The Future of People-Centred Health Innovation”, organised on the eve of the OECD Health Ministerial meeting, discussing patient-centred care, digital innovation, artificial intelligence, climate change and health, exploring policies and priorities for adopting new innovations into healthcare systems.
The adopted declaration on ‘Building Better Policies for More Resilient Health Systems’ is a strong commitment of the Ministers for improvement of health system resilience and people-centred health systems. Important for the EFN is that the OECD Declaration makes reference to: “address health workforce shortages by concerted action to train, retain, and improve the working conditions of health and care workers, and introduce new working approaches such as task sharing and task shifting; thereby promoting patient safety, while also striving to ensure that health workforce capacity from more vulnerable countries is not depleted. The adopted declaration reflects on expectations and orientations for how health system should evolve to be both more resilient and high performing, identifying key pressure points, including policy areas where there is an opportunity or a need for change. But the declaration is not a destination, it’s a starting point for action, for better policies for better and more healthy lives. To keep on ensuring universal health coverage in the EU, health systems will need to be resilient to future evolutions, ensure accessibility and effectiveness.
4/ High-level conference on “Mental Health and Work”, in January 2024,that brought together experts and decision-makers in the field of mental health and work to address all the challenges that are related to the worsening of mental health in European workplaces, and to share innovative solutions and best practices to help anticipate and plan for the future. The meeting addressed three types of prevention (primary, secondary and tertiary) and highlighted the need for an integrated approach, a strong framework at European level, a better anticipation of future crises and recognising the importance of social dialogue. From the nurses’ perspective, this is a crucial development to take forward. Considering that with COVID-19, nurses have paid a high price with their mental health, it is crucial to make the EU and national governments understand how severely the nurses’ mental health has been tested due to increasingly complex situations and precarious working conditions in which nurses’ work, which were worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic, putting nurses’ health and well-being at risk.
5/ High-level meeting on AMR One Health Network, that was a good opportunity to have an overview on the international developments that show that the many measures undertaken so far have already reduced AMR, but even though a lot is being done, and changes are visible, this is not enough. More needs to be done, including through more research to assess the ecological impacts of antibiotics.
The EFN has been appointed by the European Commission as member of the AMR One Health Network. Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) poses a significant global challenge, and frontline nurses play a central role to translate policy into practice. The European Commission and EU Member States designated AMR as one of the top three priority health threats. On 13 June 2023, the Council adopted the Recommendation on intensifying EU actions against AMR using a One Health approach. The objectives encompass strengthening national action plans, enhancing surveillance and monitoring, reinforcing infection prevention and control, promoting antimicrobial stewardship, setting targets, raising awareness, fostering research, and fostering global cooperation. The EFN welcomes the Council Recommendation on stepping up EU actions to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in a One Health approach. Nurses have a proven track record of positively impacting on reducing AMR as part of their role in medicinal product prescribing coupled with their expertise as advanced practice nurses (APN). Read EFN Article on Nurses Combatting Frontline Antimicrobial Resistance.
Wrap-up of the key developments on AMR over the last years at EU level:
6/ The EFN joined the Pact for Skills Forum “Unlocking the skills potential across Europe”, organised by the European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs, and Inclusion (DG EMPL), providing an overview of the Pact’s achievements to date and outlining its vision for future developments. The Pact aims to mobilise and incentivise stakeholders to take concrete commitments for the upskilling and reskilling of people of working age. This is what the EFN is doing in the EU project BeWell, a large-scale multi-stakeholder skills partnerships addressing the needs of the health and care ecosystem. The Pact is the first of the flagship actions under the European Skills Agenda and is firmly anchored in the European Pillar of Social Rights. The EFN members experiences on upskilling and reskilling, particularly at national level as well as the ideas and recommendations for future activities of the Pact for Skills are key to make progress.
During the meeting, Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, underlined the need for a skills revolution, as we are in the midst of a technological revolution. For the EFN, it is fundamental for nurses to be well educated and trained in AI and to be involved through co-creation. For Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Europe lacks competitivity, and that is why we need a well-trained European workforce with a well-trained nursing workforce key to achieve the resilience of European healthcare systems. The Pact for Skills is working to train 30 million professionals and workers by 2030, and this can be done only by engaging stakeholders.
The EFN had the opportunity to discuss digital & green skills, raising the work done in BeWell EU project. Investing in skills is fundamental, however it remains challenging and slow to enact. Upskilling and reskilling are essential points to be implemented and underline the importance of education and training for nurses’ students under graduate (Directive 2013/55/EU, Art 31); qualified nurses with appropriate skills to accelerate professionally; and nurses being engaged in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
7/ The Conference on the future of the European Health Union was of key importance for EFN, as it discussed high EFN policy agenda topics as the shortage of health professionals and crisis preparedness, as well as the future health agenda for Europe, putting the spotlight on the three big themes of the Belgian Presidency on health: “Care”, “Preparedness” and Protection”, and the importance of science and solidarity to tackle health crises, as well as of the EU support to the Member States in facing such crisis through its capacity to fund research and innovation.
The EFN engagement was essential, together with our colleagues from CPME, EHMA, HOSPEEM and EPSU. Bringing together ministers, policymakers and experts, the event was a good opportunity to discuss the strategic priorities for the next European Commission’s health agenda (2024-2029). National health systems in Europe and globally are facing key health workforce challenges, including shortages, uneven geographical distribution, mismatches in skill-mix, insufficiencies in developing skills to meet evolving healthcare needs and new digital and other technologies. For Frank Vandenbroucke, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health and Social Affairs, Belgium, healthcare professionals have a key role to play in running the healthcare systems in the EU and in tackling the most pressing challenges, next to the EU that can play an important role in better coordination and upscaling best practices that show the evidence of better health outcomes. For Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, the healthcare workforce, went beyond its limits during the pandemic. With the many crises we are facing today (labour, mental health, education, gender inequality, lack of financial investments, ageing, etc.), it is key to put prevention and healthy lifestyle very high in the agenda. For Maya Matthews, Head of Unit, DG Sante, European Commission, it is key to support frontline nurses!
Invited as keynote speaker in the session on the EU Workforce for health, Paul De Raeve, EFN Secretary General stressed the need for a future EU Health Workforce Strategy to include: Investments in nurses’ education as defined by the guidelines of Directive 2013/55/EU, Art 31; Better salaries through social dialogue; Safe Staffing Levels; Zero tolerance violence towards HCP, just to name a few priorities. But to have impact, we need to set priorities: Educate and Train your own Domestic Nursing Workforce. Well-designed and implemented workforce policies should decrease their workload of nurses and give nurses more time for direct patient care. It is important to focus on the added value of the strategy and through which EU instruments this can be achieved, proving nurses’ professional input toward the next legislature at European level.
EFN Concerns on Austerity
Member States could be forced to collectively cut their budgets by more than 100 billion Euro next year under the Council’s plans to reintroduce austerity measures. The EFN is very worried that these national budget cuts will have a negative impact on the nursing workforce and the healthcare systems in general, as we saw in 2010 during the Financial Crisis in the EU. Some figures of the biggest annual cuts to meet the deficit reduction targets within four years cuts: France to cut 26,1bn, Italy 25,4bn, Spain 13,9bn, Germany 11bn, Belgium 7,5bn, the Netherlands 6,4bn, Poland 4,4bn, Romania 4,3bn, Finland 2,4bn and Austria 2,3bn. How can we develop the European Pillar of Social Rights in the EU with these cuts? How can we develop an EU Health Workforce Strategy with the cuts, again?
Furthermore, equally worrying is the midterm review of the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to be finalised by the European Council under the Belgium EU Presidency. It is shocking that the re-allocations of one billion cut (20%) to the EU4Health programme, Cohesion funds and Horizon Europe – funding programmes that support social and health priorities, and research. It is a disproportionate cut. This cut was recently decided by heads of states and governments to redeploy funds from key EU programmes to divert them to support strategic technologies, defence and security at EU borders, and Ukraine’s recovery. This political decision, under the Belgian EU Presidency leads to one question: how can you achieve preparedness, care, and protection with public health budget cuts? How serious are governments in putting health high on their political agenda? Do they really want a European Health Union? That is why the High-Level Conference on the European Pillar of Social Rights is so important for the EFN. This conference will hopefully lead to signing an Inter-institutional Declaration on the Future Social Agenda of the EU based on the Member States input at the informal EPSCO.
WHO European Region
Following-up on EFN/WHO European Region long collaboration, the EFN President and Secretary General met Maggie Langins and Tomas Zapata from WHO Europe to discuss mutual policy files. Maggie presented the upcoming DG Sante Study as highlighted in the 2024 Public Health Programme, in which different stakeholders are engaged to reach the expected deliverables. It is key the EU has a sufficient and well-qualified health workforce. Yet the shortage of nurses is a burning issue in more than half Member States and a trend of nurses quitting the profession due to stress and unattractive working conditions is accelerating after the COVID-19 pandemic. The action at Union level is therefore necessary to attract more policy attention to the problem and mobilise efforts and collaboration to boost policies to create a more solid Union pool of nurses in Member States. This action will pursue two objectives: a) building up the pool of European nurses to counteract structural shortages of nurses in the Union and their negative impact on other regions of the world (traditional origin countries of migrant nurses); b) drive more policy focus and mobilise efforts to address the critical situation of nurses in order to improve resilience of health systems and safety of care, which are the central objectives of the European Health Union. The EFN is supporting the request to collaborate with the study and its main interest goes to: measures to attract more students and people in mid-careers to nursing professions; and measures to retain nurses, with a specific focus on effective approaches to safe staffing levels. It will be key to develop twinning strategies to ensure safe staffing levels in at least half of Member States!
News from the EU
European Elections
Every five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with the next elections taking place from 6 to 9 June 2024. As such, the EFN has developed a Manifesto highlighting its key political message on education, health workforce and quality & safety. The EFN members have been invited to fully use it at national level to influence their candidate MEPs. With up to 6 million nurses in Europe, the EFN and its members are a significant voting force. They are, therefore, calling on MEPs to support the following priorities and use their influence to help: Invest in nursing education, Life-long Learning & Continuous Professional Development at European and national level; Ensure optimal wages, fair working conditions and health workforce capacity building; Take national and EU initiatives to stop Violence against Nurses.
EU Global Health Strategy
The Council of the European Union approved the conclusions on the “EU Global Health Strategy: Better health for all in a changing world”, in which it reaffirms the leading role of the EU and its member states in advancing global health, and acknowledges that physical and mental health is a human right and that health is a prerequisite for sustainable development. The Council calls for increased ambition, a comprehensive approach to health, including the promotion of health and well-being, mental health, fighting discrimination and stigma, and tackling inequalities. Three complementary priorities of the Strategy should guide these efforts: 1/ deliver better health and well-being for people across their life course; 2/ strengthen health systems and advance universal health coverage; 3/ prevent and combat health threats, including pandemics, applying a One Health approach.
Some key actions proposed: promoting global health across relevant sectors, strengthening capacity and enhancing coordination through for e.g. WHO; filling gaps in global governance and ensuring complementarity and coherence of action; enhancing financing at global, regional and national level including domestic resource mobilization in partner countries; developing global health diplomacy with augmented capacity in the EU Delegations, and regularly taking stock of progress and the impact of the strategy.
New rules to combat violence against women
The European Parliament and the Council reached a political agreement on the Commission’s proposal for a Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence from March 2022. The Directive is the first comprehensive legal instrument at EU level to tackle violence against women across the EU, both offline and online. The Directive will require Member States to ensure safe, gender-sensitive and easier reporting of crimes of violence against women and domestic violence – including an option to report online. This will tackle the under-reporting of violence against women that still exists today. For years, the EFN has been highlighting this major issue that is violence against women. This is even more of a problem for nurses who are mostly women. Nurses are at the frontline of addressing many forms of violence, due to the role they play in keeping patients and communities safe. Violence and harassment against nurses are not new and is totally unacceptable, as it has an enormous negative impact on nurses’ psychological and physical well-being and on their job motivation, with nurses’ leaving the profession, and puts the quality of care and patients’ safety at risk. This Directive is more than timely and welcomed. Nurses/women need to be protected from any kinds of gender related violence and discrimination.
European Health Data Space
The European Health Data Space (EHDS) represents one of the central building blocks of a strong European Health Union and will allow individuals to check and use their health data in their own country or in other Member States, fostering the development of a digital healthcare market.
In this context, the European Commission EHDS legislative proposal (2022), taking up the European Parliament amendments and the trialogue negotiations outcomes led to a final EU proposal and an agreement that establishes clear rules for the use of health data for better healthcare delivery, research, innovation, and policymaking. The new rules will harness the potential offered by the safe and secure exchange, use, and re-use of health data, while ensuring full compliance with the EU’s high data protection standards; Citizens will have immediate and easy access to their digital health data wherever they are in the EU; and health professionals will be able to access the Electronic Health Records (EHR) of a patient when required for treatment in a different Member State, allowing for evidence-based decision making, in full compliance with EU data protection rules. This is a key step further in this key policy development to which the EFN provided significant input to.
Next to that, as a member of the EU eHealth Stakeholder Group (eHSG), coordinated by DG Sante and DG for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT), which aims to provide advice and expertise to the European Commission, on topics linked to digital health, such as the European Health Data Space (EHDS), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare, the EFN attended the 8th eHealth Stakeholder Group meeting, where Marco Marsella (DG SANTE) and Saila Rinne (DG CNECT) emphasised the importance of the healthcare professionals to implement EHDS and AI legislation. There is a real desire by the health stakeholders’ community for this EU legislation to be a success as the potential benefits offered by a well-functioning EHDS would be significant for frontline nurses. The EHDS is intended to make the functioning of European health systems more efficient, contribute to better health outcomes, and support public health and health research and innovation activities in the EU. A robust health data governance framework is essential for ensuring privacy and security to build and maintain public trust in the EHDS. The EFN and CPME, representing nurses and doctors, stressed the need for the EHDS to provide adequate resources and incentives to facilitate its successful implementation.
Furthermore, Artificial Intelligence (AI) could have a great potential for supporting nurses in their daily job, as e.g. benefiting from unlimited access to health information and records, and thus easily analyse complex data supports the nursing care process. Well-designed and implemented AI has the power to assist frontline nurses and decrease their workload in more “automatable” areas (e.g. administrative tasks), which, in turn, gives them more time for direct patient care. As expressed in theEFN Position Statement on Nurses Co-Designing Artificial Intelligence Tools, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly affecting the functioning of our healthcare systems, as well as our citizens’ expectations of these systems. The use of AI technologies to deliver care more cost-effectively represents an opportunity to relieve the currently strained healthcare systems – particularly in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Within this EU policy context and professional development, it is crucial that any development of skills and knowledge takes into account the EU Directive 2013/55/EU, Article 31, referring to the 8 EU core competencies of nurses. Nurses have the competences to lead on digital health developments and collaborate with others to develop and deliver digital tools that the nursing profession, the patients and the public needs. By focusing on empowering patients/citizens, it is essential that the AI developments increase the digital health literacy of patients, citizens, and healthcare professionals. This is an initial and essential step for creating sustainability and resilience of the healthcare eco-system and the healthcare workforce in the EU and Europe.
Publications
Building Better Policies for More Resilient Health Systems
The OECD Ministerial meeting adopted the declaration on ‘Building Better Policies for More Resilient Health Systems’ with a strong commitment of the Ministers for improvement of health system resilience and people-centred health systems. Demand for more and better healthcare continues to rise due to demographic factors, rising levels of chronic diseases, and raising healthcare costs, reflecting technological advances and pressure to make health systems climate neutral. Ministers:
- Agreed on the need for targeted investments.
- Urged further efforts to put people at the centre of health systems (PARIS).
- Welcomed the renewed Health System Performance Assessment framework.
- Asked OECD for further policy advise to support the digital transformation of health systems.
- Urged further work to help secure better health for people across society.
- Asked OECD for further advice to strengthen health system resilience.
A bachelor’s degree for entering the nursing profession: A scoping review for supporting informed health care policies by Angela Schnelli et Al.
Using a bachelor’s degree education as a minimum requirement to enter the nursing profession is essential to generate a respected, competent, and satisfied nursing workforce that can impact the quality and safety of care; and positively influence outcome indicators for patients, nurses, healthcare organizations, and society. Policy makers and healthcare organizations should set bachelor’s degrees as standards for registration and entry to nursing.
Join us also on: Facebook (/efnbrussels) / Twitter (@EFNBrussels) /
Instagram (@efn_brussels)