Representatives from 53 countries meeting at the 73rd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe in Astana, Kazakhstan, unanimously adopted a resolution in favor offramework for action on the health and care workforce in the WHO European Region, covering the years 2023 to 2030.
This framework comes at a critical time when all countries in the Region are struggling to retain and recruit sufficient numbers of health and care workers with the right mix of skills to meet the growing and changing needs of patients. The resolution serves as a basis to help resolve this health workforce crisis and will see WHO/Europe supporting governments in the Region in their implementation over the coming years.
“This is an important day for the millions of health and care professionals living in our Region, as demonstrated by the unanimous adoption of this resolution,” said the WHO regional director for Europe, Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge. “This high-level political commitment shows that countries are ready to implement concrete measures to address the health workforce crisis and create workplaces where health workers are valued, respected and protected. »
The new framework sets out five key actions countries can take to protect and support their health and care workers.
Retain and recruit.
This includes policy measures to improve the working conditions of health and care workers, including reducing heavy workloads and excessive working hours, providing more flexibility in contractual arrangements and ensuring remuneration fair. These actions will help improve the mental health and well-being of health workers and increase the attractiveness of health jobs, including in rural areas, for existing health workers and for new generations of young students.
Build supply.
This means modernizing health education and training, including developing digital health skills to create a health workforce that is responsive to current and future health service demands and needs.
Optimize performance.
This includes measures to increase the efficiency of the limited number of health workers available in the health system. This is an innovative reconfiguration of health services, using digital health technologies, and redefining teams and skill mix so that the actions they perform add value.
Plan.
Health workforce planning is essential for anticipating the future needs of the health system and taking steps to meet them now. Strengthening the capacity of human resources for health (HRH) units and improving HRH information systems can contribute to this.
Invest.
Increase public investment and optimize the use of funds, while demonstrating the economic and social arguments for investment in health and care workers.
Facing one of the most urgent crises of our time
The adoption of this historic resolution is the culmination of a series of measures led by WHO/Europe to address the current health workforce crisis.
During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, WHO/Europe has urged countries to do more to protect frontline health and care workers, who often face high levels of stress and unprecedented exhaustion, as well as higher mortality rates from COVID-19. infection.
Then, in September 2022, WHO/Europe released a landmark report warning of a “time bomb” threatening health systems unless governments do more to invest in and protect their health and care workers. care, while learning lessons from the pandemic.
“Health and care workers are the pillars of our health systems: millions of women and men who care for the sick and vulnerable, day and night. Supporting them, protecting them and ensuring that they feel valued and appreciated is a moral imperative that we cannot ignore,” said Dr Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, Director of National Health Policies and Systems at WHO/Europe .
“At WHO/Europe, we now hope that with the adoption of this historic framework, countries will be able to address the health workforce crisis with concrete measures that support their mental health, improve conditions workplaces and make workplaces more attractive to retain staff, whilst also encouraging more young people to join the healthcare sector.
In March 2023, WHO/Europe organized a regional meeting in Bucharest, Romania, where more than 250 participants from 50 countries adopted the Bucharest Declaration. This requires measures to improve the supply of health and care workers, measures to improve their retention and recruitment, better strategic planning of the health and care workforce, and greater public investment and smarter. Participants also committed to optimizing the performance of health and care workers in their countries.
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