The “VADEMECUM – A Practical Guide for EU Social Partner Organisations and their National Affiliates to Commission support to EU Social Dialogue -2017” provides basic information on the instruments related to EU support to social dialogue and includes the existing rules to be respected when using these tools. 
Download the guide.
Social Partners’ Conference on Continuing Professional Development
“Working together, learning together – Switching to the learning mode”
MEDIA RELEASE
On 19 and 20 June 2017, HOSPEEM and EPSU – with the support of the Dutch HOSPEEM member Nederlandse Vereniging van Ziekenhuizen (NVZ) – organised the conference “Working together, learning together – Switching to the learning mode” in Amsterdam to pursue and deepen their thematic focus on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Life-Long Learning (LLL).
The event built on the HOSPEEM-EPSU Joint Declaration on Continuing Professional Development and Life-Long Learning for All Health Workers in the EU adopted in November 2016. In this document the sectoral social partners in the hospital and health care sector recognise CPD as paramount for the maintenance and improvement of the quality of care and patient safety. Access to CPD and career options are presented as supportive of effective recruitment and retention policies. The joint declaration highlights that CPD and LLL initiatives should be considered as a long-term investment in the (productivity of the) health workforce and not as a cost factor. Social partners have a major role to play when it comes to CPD, in partnership with competent authorities and other relevant stakeholders. The declaration also states that undertaking CPD is a shared responsibility of employers and workers and depends to a large extent on the intrinsic motivation of employees to invest in their own development. HOSPEEM and EPSU finally recall the importance of taking local specificities into consideration and respecting the different national legal and regulatory frameworks when designing CPD systems.
The conference provided a forum for exchange and debate on a number of social partner-based initiatives presented by representatives of HOSPEEM members and EPSU affiliates from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom and on the key role played by social partners in this field. It offered the opportunity to learn more about supportive regulatory frameworks for CPD and about policy measures aimed at facilitating access to CPD, updating or upgrading qualifications, skills, competence and professional practice, the provision of quality services by a hospital/health care workforce fit for practice and at a high level of patient safety. In addition, several researchers shared their insights and experiences during the plenary sessions or during one of the four thematic break-out sessions organised. Balazs Lengyel of DG SANTE presented the main insights and selected conclusions and recommendations from the study “Mapping CPD and LLL for health professionals in the EU” – focusing on nurses, midwifes, doctors, dentists and pharmacists – issued in 2015 and commissioned by the European Commission.
A range of aspects related to CPD was covered by the presentations and discussions at the HOSPEEM-EPSU conference. These include: How to ensure sustainable models of financing of CPD for all types of health workers? How to best make CPD available for all health workers in an equal manner across all age groups, occupational groups, working patterns and all types of contracts? What can social partners at the different levels do to give better access to groups often under-represented in CPD and LLL, such as health workers aged 45+, part-time workers or workers with lower formal qualifications (mainly health care support staff)? Which models of CPD to use to support increasing demands of working in teams bringing together different health professions? How to best organise CPD on the backdrop of an increasing digitalisation of health care services (e-health; m-health; telemedicine)? How to build CPD as a key element into team and personal development planning and organisational development strategies? How to develop a partnership approach in designing, organising, implementing and assessing CPD policies and tools at national, sectoral and enterprise level?
Looking at the health professions, a particular focus was given to nurses, health care support staff and doctors. This was also underpinned by four short testimonial videos of Dutch nurses produced by NVZ about how they have benefited from CPD in their professional career and various work contexts so far and which expectations they have as to the organisation of CPD in the future.
The conference was opened by a group interview involving Bas van den Dungen, representative of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Elise Merlijn, FNV, The Netherlands, representing EPSU, and Kate Ling, NHS, United Kingdom, representing HOSPEEM. The social partner representatives highlighted some of the trade unions’ and employers’ priorities in the field of CPD and LLL, the key opportunities and problems to be addressed. The participants watched a video message by Commissioner Andriukaitis in which he expressed his support for the Joint HOSPEEM-EPSU Declaration on CPD and LLL for all Health Workers in the EU and for the ongoing work of the sectoral social partners in the hospital sector in the field of CPD.
During the conference, participants were asked to write down and share the most relevant “take home messages” to them. This input as well as visuals of a graphic recorder were used by the chairpersons and the moderator of the closing panel, Nico Knibbe, LOCOmotion, The Netherlands. Wrapping up the conference, Sabine Scheer, NVZ, The Netherlands, representing HOSPEEM, Kirsi Sillanpää, Tehy, Finland, representing EPSU, and Alice Casagrande, FEHAP, France, pointed to their key “learning experiences” during the conference and highlighted the take home messages they consider most relevant.
This conference was a key step for the sectoral social partners in the hospital and health care sector, HOSPEEM and EPSU, in identifying successful approaches, instruments and formats of CPD, both from the management and workers’ perspective. It brought together more than 100 participants from 18 EU Member States and 4 non-EU countries, including 35 participants from the Netherlands. The event was organised in the framework of the HOSPEEM-EPSU EU-funded project “Promoting effective recruitment and retention policies for health workers in the EU by ensuring access to CPD and healthy and safe workplaces supportive of patient safety and quality care” (2017-2018) and a contribution of the hospital and healthcare sector social partners to the 2016-2017 EU-OSHA Campaign ”Healthy Workplaces For All Ages”.
EPSU’s and HOSPEEM’s work on this issue will continue in 2017 and 2018. A report on the conference, also containing the key take-home messages, will be published by the end of 2017. It will be disseminated at national and at EU level and will feed into the future work of the Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for the Hospital Sector on CPD.
Amsterdam/Brussels, 23 June 2017
Contact:
HOSPEEM: Emilie Sourdoire, Policy Officer, e.sourdoire@hospeem.eu, +32/2/2292158
EPSU: Mathias Maucher, Policy Officer “Health & Social Services”, mmaucher@epsu.org, +32/2/2501093
Sofia, 1 June 2017
The Secretary General of HOSPEEM (European Hospital and Healthcare Employers’ Association), Tjitte Alkema, and Mathias Maucher, Policy Officer “Health and Social Services”, EPSU (European Federation of Public Service Unions) on 1 June 2017 met the Bulgarian Minister of Health, Prof. Nikolai Petrov. Slava Zlatanova, Vice President of FSZ-CITUB, and Krasimir Dimitrov Grudev, Member of the Managing Board of the National Union of Private Hospitals, also participated in the meeting.
The main purpose of the meeting was to allow for a first exchange on the planned priorities and major fields of action of Bulgaria in the field of health policies and with regard to the health workforce in the context of the Trio Work Programme agreed upon by Estonia, Bulgaria and Austria and to identify possible fields of common interest with the European social partners in the hospital/health care sector.
The Bulgarian Health Minister pointed out a number of topics Bulgaria has a strong interest in and could prioritise in the context of its Presidency of the European Council in the first half of 2018. Amongst those are the numerous challenges related to the cross-border migration of health workers, effective recruitment and retention policies to prevent from strong regional disparities within EU MS when it comes to the quality and availability of health services and a qualified health workforce, measures to ensure access to health care for the whole population, the reorganisation of emergency services with the aim to improve accessibility and quality as well as investment in continuing professional development for all health workers. In setting out his ideas to the representatives of HOSPEEM and EPSU Health Minister Prof. Nikolai Petrov advocated to better address the consequences of outflow of qualified health workers, including from Bulgaria, to other EU MS. The Bulgarian Health Minister also showed a high interest in a mutual exchange across Europe on policies to guarantee access to health care.
Tjitte Alkema, Secretary General of HOSPEEM highlighted the priorities for the European social partners in the hospital/health care sector for the next three years as outlined in the joint work programme and gave examples of outcomes of the HOSPEEM-EPSU joint work. Tjitte Alkema also underlined the focus of EPSU and HOSPEEM on the health sector as services of general interest and the positive effects of (public) investment in health care services and the health workforce, including in continuing professional development. Tjitte Alkema pointed out the role of European Economic Governance for policy initiatives on health employment and the need to focus on achieving greater self-sufficiency based on nationally trained health workforce to address the problem of brain drain of health workers.
At the end of the meeting – that also included an exchange amongst the Bulgarian participants – it was agreed to explore fields for possible joint initiatives or activities once the Trio Work Programme would be formally adopted.
Brussels, 3 May 2017
Joint Statement
“Health has social, environmental and behaviour determinants. We need to address public health with ambition: prevent deterioration of health and avoidable deaths, invest in health promotion and prevention. The EU together with Member States could save thousands of lives each year. Social partners can play a central role in this process. Be sure that I am one of you.” said European Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis. This passionate response came in a meeting with HOSPEEM and EPSU Secretary Generals, Mr. Tjitte Alkema and Mr. Jan Willem Goudriaan.
The representatives of the employers and trade unions met with the Commissioner responsible for health and food safety to discuss their joint work on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) that culminated in the signing of the Joint Declaration by HOSPEEM and EPSU in November 2016. EPSU and HOSPEEM informed the Commissioner about their joint upcoming conference on CPD in June 2017 and invited him to their second conference scheduled to take place in April or May 2018 in Vilnius dealing with the two most widespread health and safety hazards in the health care sector, namely musculoskeletal disorders and psycho-social risks and stress at the workplace as well as on patient safety. The Commissioner expressed his support for the Joint Declaration and more generally also for the work of the EU-level sectoral social dialogue partners for the hospital/health care sector that recently adopted their work programme. He added that social partners should keep the Joint Declaration on CPD for All Health Workers in the EU on the agenda of EU Member States and of the Council of the European Union.
Other issues addressed were
EPSU and HOSPEEM also exchanged on the possibilities to coordinate or join up forces to follow-up to the recommendations of the Report of the UN Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth and on the need for more public investment in health care.
The meeting took place on 24 April 2017. The Commissioner was accompanied by Annika Nowak, Member of Cabinet and Concetta Cultrera, DG SANTE.
On 19 and 20 june 2017 the first conference of the HOSPEEM-EPSU project “Promoting effective recruitment and retention policies for health workers in the EU by ensuring access to CPD and healthy and safe workplaces supportive of patient safety and quality care” (2017-2018) took place in Amsterdam (co-organised by NVZ and supported by HOSPEEM).
This conference entitled "Working together, learning together - Switching to the learning mode" contributed to raise awareness on the importance of continuing professional development and on the key role played by social partners in this field, building on the HOSPEEM-EPSU Joint Declaration on Continuing Professional Development and Life-Long Learning for All Health Workers in the EU adopted in November 2016.
Media release, agenda and report
Media release of HOSPEEM and EPSU
Agenda of the conference
Final report
Presentations
Welcome by Tjitte Alkema (NVZ, The Netherlands/Secretary General of HOSPEEM)
Introduction by Mr. Bas van den Dungen (Director General VWS, Ministry of Health, The Netherlands)
Video address from Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis (DG SANTE)
Working and learning in the service Managing continuing professional development, Prof. Janet Grant (CenMEDIC, UK)
Heidelberg Expertise for a continuing professional advancement,Herbert Beck (ver.di, Germany) and Anja König (University Hospital Heidelberg, Germany)
A nurse is a nurse is a nurse? Skills level differentiation in the Netherlands, Prof. Hester Vermeulen (Radboud University Medical Center, The Netherlands) and Dewi Stalpers (NVZ, The Netherlands)
CPD for support staff: a new career opportunity in nursing, Helga Pile (UNISON, UK) and Sam Donohue (Health Education England, UK)
Introducing the contribution of patients and/or social care users in the training process, Dr. Angela Towle (University of British Columbia, Canada) and Alice Casagrande (FEHAP, France)
DG SANTE study “Mapping CPD and LLL for health professionals in the EU”, Balazs Lengyel (DG SANTE, European Commission)
Session 1: Different angles to effective CPD
Definition of CPD priorities and negotiations of professional branches on CPD activities/programmes in the French hospital sector, CFDT video and intervention of Cyrille Duch (CFDT Santé Services Sociaux, France)
Competence development of an ageing workforce in German hospitals, Dr. Sebastian Merkel (IAT, Gelsenkirchen, Germany)
How to cooperate between trade unions, employers and education providers in setting up effective CPD in Sweden? Margaretha Johansson (Kommunal, Sweden) and Zenita Cider (CEO of health and care services college, Sweden)
Session 2: Inter-professional cooperation and skills development
The BRIDGE model – A competency development programme designed to enhance interprofessional collaboration, shared knowledge and patient and citizen involvement across sectors. Jette Steenberg Holtzman and Winnie Lund (Center for human resources, Capital Region of Denmark)
How does CPD support multi-professional team-based care? An example from Finland, Juhapetteri Jääskeläinen (Deputy Nurse Manager, Helsinki University, Central Hospital HUCH, Helsinki Burn Centre, Finland)
Session 3:Funding of CPD
How is, or should, CPD be financed? An example from the Netherlands,Niels Oerlemans (NVZ, The Netherlands)
Competentia – Roles and activities of a paritarian organisation to promote and support CPD for care workers, François-Xavier Lefebvre (Competentia, Belgium)
Session 4:Innovative work-place learning
Crew Resource Management: a Dutch example of building health care teams focusing on effective communication and leadership, Erica Overeem (Gelre Hospital, The Netherlands)
Good practice: Short video instructions at the moment of need, Jaco van der Worp (Groene Hart Hospital, Gouda, The Netherlands)
Learn to escape!, Cuun de Jong and Priscilla Verwoert (Spaarne guesthouse, The Netherlands)
The 'Roadmap': A Dutch example of organising support for Continuous Professional Development that fits within the ambitions of the organisation and its employees,Harm Landman and Hannah Wahab (Noordwest Ziekenhuisgroep/North West Hospital Group, Alkmaar, The Netherlands)
Closing panel/Wrap up session moderated by Nico Knibbe
Interviews with Dutch nurses by NVZ
Interview Linda Koolen
Interview Charlotte Schoenmaker
Interview Joost Sijtsma
Interview Maaike Stout
Abstracts,biographies and graphic recording
Abstracts of presentations
Biographies of presenters
Graphic recording
Photo Gallery
***Back to main project page***
This project is supported with funds from the European Commission and is a contribution to the EU-OSHA Healthy Workplaces for All Ages Campaign
HOSPEEM visited its Danish member organisation Danish Regions on 22 March 2017 in Copenhagen.
A meeting at Danish Regions provided the opportunity to discuss about their activities and current priorities and to exchange on the Danish healthcare system and on the most prominent challenges in the hospital and healthcare sector in Denmark.
We in particular exchanged about the Danish value-based healthcare initiative and digitalization in general being implemented in Danish hospitals.
During this study visit, HOSPEEM also had the opportunity to exchange about assessment of skill needs and cross-sectoral competence development. Working hour arrangements and how they affect workers’ health were also discussed.
HOSPEEM would like to express its sincere thanks to Malene Vestergaard Sørensen, Eva Weinreich-Jensen and Morten Slabiak for the warm welcome and the enriching and fruitful exchange. We would also like to thank warmly Signe Friberg Nielsen, Pernille Moll, Jette Steenberg Holtzmann and Anne Helene Garde for their very enlightening contributions.
This activity report presents basic information on the history of HOSPEEM, on the membership structure as well as on the main activities carried out during the year.
2016 has been a very successful year with a number of achievements: the closure of the joint HOSPEEM-EPSU project on Occupational Health and Safety (OSH), the publication of the first HOSPEEM corporate brochure, the adoption of the HOSPEEM-EPSU Joint Declaration on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Life-Long-Learning (LLL) for all health workers in the EU, the high-level meeting with EU Commissioner for Health Vytenis Andriukaitis, the preparation of a new joint HOSPEEM-EPSU project on effective recruitment and retention policies, and also a HOSPEEM-EPSU new work programme 2017-2019 for the European social dialogue.
At the first meeting of the Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for the Hospital Sector (SSDC-HS) in 2017, HOSPEEM and EPSU reached a final agreement of the Joint Work-Programme 2017-2019. It is structured around four major thematic priorities, i.e. recruitment and retention of health workforce, Continuing Professional Development and Life-Long Learning, Occupational Health and Safety and well-being, and Health care policy. Each sub-theme is presented with specific objectives, deliverables and a timeline.
Download the Joint Work Programme – EN
EU-OSHA recently launched a visualisation tool designed to allow easy and quick access to the results of its three-year 
project “Safer and healthier work at any age”. The European Commission concluded a delegation agreement with the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) to carry out a pilot project entitled ‘Safer and healthier work at any age — occupational safety and health (OSH) in the context of an ageing workforce’. This was based on a decision and request of the European Parliament, whose objective was to further investigate possible ways of improving the safety and health of older people at work, as the ageing of the workforce will have a serious financial impact on workers, employers and taxpayers.
Thus, the project aimed to assess the prerequisites for OSH strategies and systems to take account of an ageing workforce and improve risk prevention and health protection for all throughout working life. The key results of the project are presented, including data on demographics, employment, working conditions, and health, as well as examples of OSH policies across Europe addressing the challenges of an ageing workforce. This data visualisation tool presents the key findings of the project and allows users to explore the data in an interactive way by comparing countries and searching for policies, strategies and programmes, among other possibilities.
The issue of the ageing workforce is represented using the ‘Age pyramid’, that is, an interactive graph showing historical data and the projections for the EU, provided by Eurostat. Next to this, some important figures show that this issue is closely related to OSH and working conditions.
The country insights section provides country specific information on initiatives to address the ageing of the workforce, including healthy life years expectancy, population age structure development, employment rate, workplace risk assessments data etc…
See more in the visualisation tool
In 2017-2018 HOSPEEM and EPSU have been provided with financial support from the European Commission for a joint project in the field of recruitment and retention entitled: “Promoting effective recruitment and retention policies for health workers in the EU by ensuring access to CPD and healthy and safe workplaces supportive of patient safety and quality care” (01.02.2017-01-01-2019).
Objectives
The project provided an appropriate framework to continue to focus on continuing professional development (CPD) as a first joint policy priority for HOSPEEM and EPSU. The work served to collect, discuss and evaluate social partner-based initiatives and policy measures on a range of aspects linked to the aim of facilitating access to CPD and guaranteeing quality services supportive of patient safety and provided by a workforce fit for practice. It will build on the HOSPEEM-EPSU Joint Declaration on Continuing Professional Development and Life-Long Learning for All Health Workers in the EU.
The project was secondly geared towards the follow-up to results and recommendations of the HOSPEEM-EPSU joint project (2014-2016) in the field of occupational safety and health (OSH). The prevention, management and reduction of “musculoskeletal disorders” (MSD) and “psychosocial risks and stress at work” (PSRS@W) have been identified by HOSPEEM and EPSU members as two key priorities for their future joint work. In June 2016 they agreed on a “Summary Document” – available in EN, FR, DE, ES, RU and SV, setting out a number of follow-up activities to support policy implementation EPSU and HOSPEEM have agreed to consider in a next step. In May 2019, HOSPEEM and EPSU members agreed on the “summary document” of the project 2017-2019 “Promoting effective recruitment and retention policies for health workers in the EU by ensuring access to CPD and healthy and safe workplaces supportive of patient safety and quality care” (2017-2019).
Download project detailed description
Timeline:
Expected results
The project produced a report from each conference and a brief document summarising the main insight, conclusions and recommendations of the project. The information collected, the project results and recommendations will be fed back into the regular work of the Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for the hospital/health care sector (SSDC HS) to be further discussed and assessed, in particular in view of their use to influence EU-level policy making.
Implementation
This first conference took place on 19-20 June 2017 in Amsterdam (co-organised by NVZ and Dutch partners, supported by HOSPEEM).
This second conference took place in Vilnius on 23-24 May 2018 (co-organised by LSADPS and supported by EPSU).
Dissemination
This dissemination workshop took place in Brussels on 3 December 2018 (organised by HOSPEEM and EPSU, hosted by MEP Jana Žitňanská, ECR, Slovakia and MEP Brando Benifei, S&D, Italy).
EPSU also has set up a page with the project-related information.
This project has received funding from the European Commission
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