Nurses worldwide are hitting their breaking point, and many are already walking away desperately from the nursing profession and even the healthcare sector, because the politicians and policymakers, due to their ongoing cuts, left frontline nurses exhausted, unsupported, and struggling to keep up with quality and safety. Violence, nursing shortages, and unrealistic workloads, with every shift being a battle for frontline nurses, lead to physical and emotional exhaustion, making it impossible for nurses to stay in the nursing profession. If nothing concrete is done, the global nursing shortage will hit 13 million by 2030 (WHO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, the EU Institutions need to better support frontline nurses and not hide behind subsidiarity! Let\u2019s create a healthcare system where nurses choose to stay without sacrificing their own health and well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What we need is ACTION, CONCRETE ACTION, not endless reports and recommendations<\/strong> The European Commission: limited joint action but more impact is needed<\/strong> While the EU Member States must be self-sufficient in educating and training their nursing workforce, the European Commission must urgently develop EU legislation on safe staffing levels, and on zero-tolerance to violence against healthcare professionals, which must be implemented by the Member States to keep nurses in the profession. These Directives would fall under Occupational Health and Safety (OSH), on which the EU has already developed more than 20 individual Directives! This is crucial to improve the working conditions of nurses, the quality and safety of patients\u2019 care, and to build a resilient healthcare workforce that is prepared for the next health and civic crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The subsidiarity argument cannot stand as a justification anymore, as national legislation on safe staffing levels is available in 21 EU countries, and many countries already have some legislation to protect healthcare professionals from violence. So, it is simply a question of pushing for upward harmonisation of what is available already in the Member States! Reform needs to build on a reviewed Recovery and Resilience Facility<\/a> (RFF), pushing for a renewed focus on building the EU domestic healthcare workforce\u2019s capacity in quantity and quality to be better prepared for any health crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last decade, a growing number of research studies have focused on human resources for health and aimed to explore conditions for a more effective and optimised operation of health systems. Emerging topics, such as the need for more upskilling and reskilling, the impact of AI and digitalisation on workflows, even task shifting and mental wellbeing are thoroughly investigated. BUT nothing changes at the frontline! We have a lot of publications, EU project deliverables, BUT no frontline impact, with the millions spend! This is unacceptable for EFN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The European Commission supports Member States in several ways; through a EU4health Joint Action on forecasting and planning of health workforce; Actions on digital and green skills development under the BeWell project; the WHO-led Nursing Action addressing the recruitment and retention of nurses in the EU, with a specific focus on Nursing Student Mentorship and Safe Staffing Levels. Importantly, Safe Staffing Levels is a priority of the DG SANTE Health Systems Performance Assessment (HSPA) Expert Group. Furthermore, the health workforce challenges become more reflected in the European Semester Country Reports<\/a>. Good start, but not enough!<\/p>\n\n\n\n