Hospital sector social dialogue: skills mix, workforce planning and leadership
The European Social Dialogue Committee in Hospitals held a ‘New Skill Needs’ seminar on 16 September 2009. HOSPEEM and EPSU participants exchanged experiences in these three areas (skills mix, workforce planning and leadership).
The seminar was chaired by Kim Ost-Jacobsen of the Danish Nursing Organisation. Concretely, the main decision was to establish a drafting group to explore these issues further and to submit a position paper to the Hospital Social Dialogue Plenary session, scheduled for 8 December 2009.
The Social partners identified that one of the main challenges was to improve the status of healthcare staff by offering clear and attractive career paths for both women and men. It is therefore important to find the right mix of skills in order to free up more staff time for the treatment of patients. Potential avenues to practically apply this include: proper identification of new skill, identifying and addressing where skill shortages (and over-capacity), occur, and outlining clear leadership ‘paths’ to ensure retention of highly qualified staff.
Background: At the Plenary meeting on 4 December 2008, EPSU and HOSPEEM decided to develop a social dialogue instrument either in the form of a framework of actions or guidelines. The instrument should cover skills mix, leadership in the hospital sector at all levels and in all areas and workforce planning at macro level.
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