4.N. Round table: Policy options for fixing the global and European health and care workforce-crisis
Authors:   Organised by: European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, WHO,   Chair persons: Matthias Wismar (European Observatory)
Published: October 2023

Globally and within Europe, health systems are plagued by health and care workforce (HCWF) shortages, regional maldistribution, and skill-gaps. Insufficient training pipelines for health and care workers (HCW), attrition, discouraging working conditions and, in Europe, the demographics are contributing factors to the HCWF-crisis. This situation has been aggravated by the impact of COVID-19 and its immense burden on HCW's resulting in a further thinning of the HCWF. Despite these challenges, there are also many lessons to be learned from the various COVID-19 health systems responses in countries on improving the situation for the HCWF. National responses to COVID-19 showed that the health and care workforce is capable of hugely positive change. The lessons generated offer powerful evidence on how best to develop a sustainable workforce that is equipped to deliver on the ambitions of universal health coverage (UHC), health security and the sustainable development goals (SDGs). There is, however, no simple solution or silver bullet that can resolve the crisis. The response needs to be multi-faceted.

Therefore, in this roundtable discussion, we will review policy options bundled in three sets: The first set focuses on the working conditions, which include: changing the scope of practice and introducing team-based roles; increasing the use of technology and digital tools; allowing for more flexible regulations; ensuring the physical, mental, and social protection of HCW. The second set of policy options focuses on the better alignment between health system demands and the education, employment, and finance sectors. The policy options presented will included investment in intersectoral relationships; strengthened intersectoral mechanisms; reliable data and forecasting; identifying the co-benefits for other sectors of investment in the HCWF. The third set of policy options focuses on smart investments and resource mobilization. This includes investing in the oversupply of HCW; investing in education; protecting investments by protecting HCW; securing sufficient and sustained investment through solidarity and cooperation at the multilateral, regional and domestic levels. Finally, as a cross cross-cutting lesson learned from COVID-19 health system responses the role of political leadership will be demonstrated both at the top level as well as also across governments, civil-society and the private sector.

The evidence for the roundtable discussion is based on three policy briefs developed for the 5th Global Forum for Human Resources for Health. The roundtable discussion will be highly interactive. After a brief keynote, which will set the scene, we will instantly engage the audience through active facilitation interacting with senior researchers and senior WHO officials.

Key messages

• The Global and European health and care workforce-crisis must be addressed and requires a multi-faceted response supported by political leaderships at all levels.

• The lessons generated from COVID-19 responses offer powerful evidence on how best to develop a sustainable workforce to deliver on the ambitions of universal health coverage.

Speakers/Panelists

Margaret Caffrey

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK

Jim Campbell

WHO, Geneva, Switzerland

Tomas Zapata

WHO/Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark

Gemma Williams

European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, London, UK