The regional office for Europe of the World Health Organization announces a new initiative to engage Non-State actors (NSAs) in the fight against the severe health and care workforce crisis affecting the region. Thirty-two have committed to collaborate on solving critical challenges such as personnel shortages, recruitment and retention difficulties, migration of qualified professionals, and suboptimal working conditions.
This effort is aligned with the launch by WHO, in the context of the 73rd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe, of the Framework for Action on the Health and Care Workforce 2023–2030, endorsed by all 53 Member States. The Framework has created a space for WHO/Europe to be more pro-active with NSAs regarding the fostering of development of effective strategies in dealing with difficult workforce problems and ensuring the introduction of policies on the health workforce.
Importantly, it means all those organizational categories, such as the professional associations, non-governmental organizations, and networks like Youth4Health. These are the nonstate actors that may be considered great partners since they have worked closely with communities and have deep working experience involving a diverse sector, which includes millions of patients and health professionals.
Tomas Zapata, Chief of Health Workforce and Service Delivery in WHO/Europe, underlined the role of non-State actors (NSAs) in implementing the Framework for Action. He said: “This network will be vital in reaching out to the NSAs and ensuring their involvement as well as creating a platform through which they can start to make change happen for the root causes of the health and care workforce crisis in the region.” Many of the NSAs have already contributed some enormously valuable insights to the initiative already, covering issues, inter alia, as the following:
Working conditions and job satisfaction for junior doctors and nurses
Quality of Medical and Nursing Education: Undergraduate and postgraduate level
Gender Disparity within the Health Workforce
International Health Professional Mobility
Informal care: The role in long-term care
Policy approaches to Attracting and Retaining Family Doctors and Nurses.
The NSAs will, on an ongoing basis, collaborate with WHO/Europe on a community of learning on effective health workforce policies. Their work will complement the five pillars of the Framework-thus providing support to retaining and recruiting staff, building supply, optimizing performance, planning effectively, and securing sustainable investment in the health workforce.
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