Support to reforms in health workforce field – Initiatives on retention policies

The objective of the initiative is to provide support to Member States to design and implement their policies related to healthcare workforce retention, task-shifting and regional medical deserts.

This should be achieved, through the development of supporting tools –guidelines, scaling up of good practices, creating a platform for policy dialogue to advance on these challenging issues.

Background

The European health workforce is facing major challenges due to an ageing population, a higher demand of new primary care models and better-integrated and more patient-centred care, and rise of chronic diseases, in a broader context of persistent budgetary constraints.

Moreover, the health workforce itself is ageing rapidly while financial cutbacks compound broader migration patterns and are causing severe health workforce shortages in various Member States. Finally, several EU regions are facing the problem of so-called “medical deserts” with falling number of medical practitioners. It becomes more than urgent to promote evidence-based reforms to address the challenges that the European health workforce is facing, through actions focusing on retention policies, medical deserts and task shifting.

Objectives

• Identifying and analyzing factors related to the conception and implementation of reforms on retention policies, medical deserts and task-shifting, and developing practical guidelines for the public authorities and healthcare providers which will serve as the operational tools supporting their healthcare workforce policies in relation to challenges in these fields;
• Analyzing and suggesting possible changes in the legal and policy environment and ways to provide incentives to remove legal and other barriers to the recruitment and retention of healthcare workforce in underserved areas;
• Implementing effective strategies, identifying best practices and facilitating the exchange of these practices including at regional or local level (e.g. through information sessions), assessing the suitability/ground for broader practice dissemination;
• Contributing to a network on health workforce linked to the EU health policy platform (EU-HPP)^[1], to ensure the sustainability of results achieved under individual projects , continuation of dissemination and scale up of best practices amongst Member States beyond the action’s term;
• Organizing workshops and seminars to ensure joint reflection among the actors participating in the selected initiatives and relevant experts and, when relevant, cross-fertilisation of ideas across the three areas of reforms at stake;
• Enhancing knowledge, including by targeted studies and reports related to the development of retention policies, the development of policies on medical deserts, and the implementation of task-shifting projects;
• Providing practical training and developing educational material, which could be further exploited by public authorities and healthcare providers engaged in the health workforce field;
• Organising events to present the lessons learnt and the guidelines to the relevant public authorities and healthcare providers.

Expected impact

• Support Members States in constantly improve designing and implementing their policies related to healthcare workforce retention, task-shifting and regional medical deserts.
• Enhance the knowledge base and the practical toolsfor the conception and implementation of reforms on retention policies, medical deserts and task-shifting.

The funded action should also lead to creating a community of actors experienced in healthcare workforce issues with the aim of, inter alia:

• sharing best practices and lessons learned from pilot projects and from institutions with higher expertise and transformation experiences;
• developing tools to disseminate them and stimulate activities in less advanced institutions.

Budget

The Commission considers that proposals requesting an EU contribution of approx. 400.000 EUR and a duration of 36 month would appropriately address the specific workforce related challenges. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submissions and selection of proposals requesting other amounts or duration.

The grant agreement(s) will be awarded to those ranked highest, up to the available budget of 800.000 EUR (EU-Contribution).

Deadline

10 June 2020 17:00:00 Brussels time

More information

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