Universal health coverage on the agenda as Ukraine’s Health Minister visits WHO/Europe
Reforms to reduce the financial burden of health care in Ukraine were discussed as Ukraine’s Minister of Health, Dr Zoryana Skaletska, visited WHO/Europe in Copenhagen on 2 December 2019. During the visit, Dr Skaletska outlined the need to continue the transformation of the health system and health sector reforms in the coming years.
Ukraine’s Minister of Health, Dr Zoryana Skaletska:
“….we need to continue extending primary health care coverage to all in Ukraine, as well improving access and quality of care”.
Primary Care Summer School
University of Angers (France) organizes the third cohort of the Primary Care Summer School from 28th June till 3rd of July 2020.
The two previous programmes have been very successful with a number of projects carried out related to primary care following the summer school. This international and multidisciplinary summer school program aims to provide participants with opportunity to develop reflection on the role and the organization of primary care in different countries and the input of research on practice and development of primary care. This will be a great opportunity to develop collaborations between students and to support the emergence of a community of leaders in primary care.
Content will be taught in English.
More information and application here.
WHO Quality Rights initiative – improving quality, promoting human rights
WHO QualityRights is reforming mental health services and promoting the human rights of people with psychosocial, intellectual and cognitive disabilities around the world.
These videos highlight how this initiative works and how it is making a difference to people’s lives in Gujarat and Lebanon.
WHO QualityRights aims to improve access to quality mental health and social services and promote the rights of people with mental health conditions, psychosocial, intellectual and cognitive disabilities.
Fair priced pharmaceuticals for European patients
The International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies (AIM) organised an event on « Fair prices for pharmaceuticals – Why and How ? ». The event gathered around 50 participants coming from healthcare organisations from across Europe, as well as the European institutions to discuss the challenges of the current pharmaceuticals pricing model and potential solutions. The event culminated in the presentation of AIM’s proposal for fair and transparent prices for pharmaceuticals. AIM called in the event for the European institutions to take action. It invited the European Commission to set up a high level group on fair pricing of medicines. AIM also called for a strategic alliance of all stakeholders to structure civil society’s expectations and to speak with one voice with regard to fair pricing of medicines. AIM invites all stakeholder to come together to collaborate on the ambitions outlined in the paper and to undertake the successive steps to make them reality.
Atlas of Migration: Commission's Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography launches a new version
By Abigail Moreno Gines
The Commission's Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography launched a new version of the Atlas of Migration - an online reference tool with data on nearly 200 countries and territories for migration policy makers, practitioners and citizens. This is an interactive resource collating data and indicators on migration and related topics around the world. The data has been processed and brought together in a single dataset, which can be explored through country-specific dashboards.
Events
ESNO Congress 2020 “The Specialist Nurse in European Healthcare towards 2030”
February 20, 2020
Brussels, Belgium
EQuiP 2020 Conference in Utrecht: "Quality & Safety of Urgent Primary Care in Europe"
8 & 9 May 2020
Utrecht, The Netherlands
EHMA Annual Conference: Health Management: realigning systems, contexts and players
9th-11th June, 2020
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
The call for Abstracts is now open!
16th World Congress on Public Health: Public health for the future of humanity: analysis, advocacy and action
12th-17th October, 2020
Rome, Italy
The call for Abstracts is now open! Deadline 1st March 2020.
Articles
New on Primary Health Care Research & Development (PHCR&D)
Understanding barriers to women seeking and receiving help for perinatal mental health problems in UK general practice: development of a questionnaire
Elizabeth Ford, Hannah Roomi, Hannah Hugh and Harm van Marwijk
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1463423619000902
The aim is to develop a questionnaire to measure quantitatively barriers and facilitators to women’s disclosure of perinatal mental health problems in UK primary care. To pilot and evaluate the questionnaire for content validity and internal consistency.
Around 15% of women develop a mental illness in the perinatal period, such as depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. In the United Kingdom, 90% of these women will be cared for in primary care, yet currently in as many as 50% of cases, no discussion of this issue takes place. One reason for this is that women experience barriers to disclosing symptoms of perinatal mental illness in primary care. These have previously been explored qualitatively, but no tool currently exists with which to measure these barriers quantitatively.
*Primary Health Care Research & Development is the EFPC official Journal
New WHO report: Ignoring the health of people in prisons now comes at a high cost for society later
The “WHO status report on prison health in the WHO European Region” presents an analysis of data collected on the health status of people in prison and prison health systems for 39 countries in the Region. The WHO survey collected data from Member States between 2016 and 2017 to enable monitoring and surveillance of health in prisons.
“From prison release to community
An estimated 6 million people are incarcerated each year in the Region. After release, rates of reoffending and returning to prison are high. The report points out that this cycle between prison and community often leads to disjointed and ineffective health care outside of prison.”
The EFPC is starting a Working Group on Prison Health and Primary Care. We invite researchers, professionals and policy makers who are interested in this topic to contribute to this development. The initiator of the WG is Anke van Dam, our new Advisory Board member who has considerable experience in this area via her own organization AFEW (Aids Foundation East West). A few EFPC members have already begun an online discussion environment in PIE. Please contact the EFPC secretariat or if you have already access to PIE go straight to the discussion to show your interest.
Twenty years trends in healthcare systems in 22 European countries. Part 3: Towards a stronger primary care!
Kemenade YW van, Heneman EC, Niessing W.
In the past 20 years, healthcare reforms in various European countries have converged, but a single healthcare system in Europe is not realistic. Healthcare is a national matter, because a healthcare system is highly dependent and embedded in the history of a country, national culture, political circumstances, economic context, social system and other circumstances. However, legislation and reforms are increasingly looking beyond their own national borders.
Four studies (1997, 2007, 2018 and 20191) describe the healthcare system of 11 and 22 European countries. The series of articles will discuss trends in the past 20 years. In the past 10-15 years, reforms have shifted from (macro) cost-control to measures at micro and meso level, improving the quality and efficiency of care. In many European countries studied, we see a trend towards strengthening primary care
New Eurohealth looks at the sustainability of long-term care
The December issue of Eurohealth addresses a range of questions including preventing social isolation and loneliness among older people, improving outcomes for people with long-term care needs through personalisation, policy measures to support unpaid care across Europe, and migrant care work and workforce shortages. This issue also looks at the 'why' and 'how' of switching health insurer in the Netherlands, advanced practice nursing in Swiss Primary Care, centralising healthcare administration in Finland and a new primary care policy in the Russian Federation.
With on:
Page 22: 'why' and 'how' of switching health insurer in the Netherlands, By: Judith De Jong and Anne EM Brabers
Page 25: advanced practice nursing in Swiss Primary Care, by By: Beat Sottas, Renata Josi, Stefan Gysin and Stefan Essig
Page 34: a new primary care policy in the Russian Federation, by By: Erica Richardson and Igor Sheiman
Use of quality circles for primary care providers in 24 European countries: an online survey of European Society for Quality and Safety in family practice delegates
Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care Volume 37, 2019 - Issue 3
Adrian Rohrbasser, Ulrik Bak Kirk & Eva Arvidsson
Key messages: Countries with already established quality circle movements increased their participation rate and extended their range of quality circle activities. In 13 countries, more than 10% of general practitioners participated in quality circles, compared with eight countries in 2000.
