The meeting focused on the need for more investments in the healthcare workforce, especially in light of ageing and green and digital megatrends which are creating major changes and put pressure on the qualitative health and care service provision.

Klaus Heeger, CESI Secretary-General, set the stage in the post-Covid-19 context and highlighted the vital role healthcare workers play in our societies: “They are the life support of our communities and they should be valued as such through recognition, remuneration, adequate levels of staffing and good working conditions”, he said.

Susanna Ulinski from the European Commission presented the European Care Strategy, with its two constituting proposals for Council Recommendations on a revision of the Barcelona targets on early childhood education and care and on access to affordable high-quality long-term care. Against the background of an opinion that CESI had sumitted on the subject to the European Commission in April 2022, the Expert Commission stressed that the European Care Strategy must be swiftly and fully adopted and implemented by the Member States.

Yiannos Tolias from the European Commission presented a recent legislative proposal by the European Commission on a new European Health Data Space (EHDS), an envisaged instrument to better exchange medical data in a digital form, in particular by setting clear and unified frameworks for the use and provision of electronic health data, also cross border.

Pia Holmen, also from the European Commission, presented the EU’s Single Market Emergency Instrument, a tool to preserve the free movement of goods, services and persons and the availability of essential goods and services in the event of emergencies, which complements other EU legislative measures for crisis management like the Union Civil Protection Mechanism and which is of particular relevance in the health sector: In light of the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is important to establish how the EU can take into account the human factor in the healthcare sectors for future crises.

Tilemachos Dafnis from the CESI General Secretariat presented a new EU-cofunded project of CESI’s Europe Academy entitled ‘ECOTRA – Ecological change in public services’, which targets worker-friendly ‘greening’ of public services, including healthcare. He noted that knowledge about the European Green Deal will facilitate the identification with and the ownership of the European Green Deal’s objectives within CESI’s trade union network.

Georgia Karyami from the European Health Management Association introduced new developments of the EU-funded ‘BeWell’ project, where CESI is a partner, on developing the EU’s Pact for Skills for the health sector, a so-called Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills (green and digital).

Milena Popovic from CESI’s member ‘Montenegrin Doctors’ Union’ (Sindikat DMCG) addressed the need to achieve better staff retention and recruitment for the healthcare sectors and an overall increase in the standard of quality of healthcare provision, especially in light of brain drain and medical deserts.

The expert commission meeting concluded with the adoption of a new position paper on the future of the health workforce in Europe, which stresses the need to invest more in the workforce and to make healthcare services more accessible, available and qualitative for all EU citizens.