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European doctors’ ambitions to keep building a ‘coherent’ and ‘equitable’ European Health Union have been published by the Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME).
It’s ‘Health Check for Europe 2024-2029’ sets out a vision for the EU’s health priorities ahead of the upcoming European Parliament election in June.
This includes five ambitions urging European policy makers to tackle the health workforce crisis, ensure a safe digital transformation of healthcare, enable healthier living, guarantee accessibility and effectiveness of medicines and take climate action for better health.
Commenting on the ambitions outlined in the Health Check vision, CPME president Dr Christiaan Keijzer said: ‘Whilst European countries have made huge advances in collaboration on health in recent years, we cannot take a step backwards.
‘The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that health is the foundation of our economy and society, and exposed that problems that have not been solved. Our health systems still suffer from deep structural flaws and our health workforce is exhausted and undervalued.
‘The European Health Union is not complete: the EU needs a coherent long-term vision for health in Europe and beyond for equitable access to healthcare for patients.
‘European doctors remain strongly committed partners in making these ambitions a reality.‘
On the subject of recruitment and retention, the Health Check highlights issues of ‘untenable working conditions, excessive hours, and insufficient resources‘, which mean ‘medicine is losing its attractiveness as a life-long profession, and if we continue in this path we will not have a functioning health workforce.’
This follows the publication of CPME‘s policy in November 2023 providing recommendations to enhance the wellbeing of doctors across Europe.
The policy aims to improve patient care, professional excellence, and overall job satisfaction by addressing challenges such as work-related stress, organisational culture, supportive working environments, burnout and work-life balance.
The CPME presented the five ambitions to the president of the European Parliament, MEP Roberta Metsola on 22 January 2024.
