The European Commission has now published its Action Plan for the EU Health Workforce to help EU member states address the challenges faced by the healthcare sector.
As part of a wider approach to help stimulate a job-rich recovery across the EU, the European Commission has proposed some concrete measures for the health sector. This Action Plan builds on a European Commission Green Paper on the European Workforce for Health, published in 2009, and on Council conclusions of December 2010.
The original Green Paper identified a number of issues relating to the health workforce, with a view to raising their profile and generating a clearer picture of the extent to which they are common to healthcare providers across Europe.
The Action Plan
The Action Pan lists four areas of focus where the Commission will provide support to member states. These are:
- improving health workforce planning and forecasting in the EU, with the Commission looking to create a European platform to share good practice, develop forecasting methodologies on health workforce needs and effective planning, and improve EU-wide data on the health workforce.
- better anticipating skills' needs in the healthcare sector - by supporting the creation of a European Skills Council on nursing and care workers to better analyse and anticipate skill needs in these professions, fostering partnerships between vocational training providers and employers through the work of a Sector Skills Alliance, promoting the exchange of continuous professional development, and developing recommendations for the training requirements of healthcare assistants.
- stimulating exchange on the recruitment and retention of health workers, by launching a mapping of innovative and effective recruitment and retention strategies
- supporting ethical recruitment of health workers, by supporting member states' implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice for the International recruitment of Health Personnel.
The full Action Plan can be found here, in the annex to the Communication.
Next steps
The package of measures proposed by the European Commission will be discussed at a high level conference in September to further mobilise all partners to implement the measures announced.
NHS Employers' response to Green Paper
NHS Employers and the NHS Confederation carried out a joint consultation to ascertain the views of NHS managers on the original Green Paper. Input by NHS Employers was also made into the European Hospital and Healthcare Employers' Association (HOSPEEM) response, with the following key points being made:
- Healthcare providers are working to recruit and retain staff and also maximize the productivity of their workforce through improved working practices.
- Staff mobility around Europe is having an impact on certain countries and the ‘Code of Conduct and follow-up on Ethical Cross Border Recruitment and Retention’ developed by HOSPEEM and EPSU can help ensure healthcare workers' mobility does not have a detrimental impact.
- Data collection at a national level should not become an additional burden, but it could be useful if the EU collated data on workforce trends at a European level.
- HOSPEEM members commented on the need to provide training to ensure the effective implementation of new technology and that the process for applying for European funding should be less onerous.