Regulating the health workforce in Europe: implications of the COVID-19 pandemic

Dimitra Panteli,Claudia B. Maier

doi:10.1186/s12960-021-00624-w

Abstract

In the European free movement zone, various mechanisms aim to harmonize how the competence of physicians and nurses is developed and maintained to facilitate the cross-country movement of professionals. This commentary addresses these mechanisms and discusses their implications during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing lessons for future policy. It argues that EU-wide regulatory mechanisms should be reviewed to ensure that they provide an adequate foundation for determining competence and enabling health workforce flexibility during health system shocks. Currently, EU regulation focuses on the automatic recognition of the primary education of physicians and nurses. New, flexible mechanisms should be developed for specializations, such as intensive or emergency care. Documenting new skills, such as the ones acquired during rapid training in the pandemic, in a manner that is comparable across countries should be explored, both for usual practice and in light of outbreak preparedness. Initiatives to strengthen continuing education and professional development should be supported further. Funding under the EU4Health programme should be dedicated to this endeavour, along with revisiting the scope of necessary skills following the experience of COVID-19. Mechanisms for cross-country sharing of information on violations of good practice standards should be maintained and strengthened to enable agile reactions when the need for professional mobility becomes urgent.

Highlights

Main text The COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated the importance of ensuring adequate numbers and a balanced skill-mix of health professionals, as well as the necessity for an overview of how professional competence is developed, maintained and demonstrated across countries
Health professional regulation is essential for setting the framework within which this can be achieved, end encompasses laws or bylaws defining the minimum requirements for education, entry to practice, title protection, scope-of-practice, continuing professional development and sanctioning
Moving forward: priority areas for cross‐country collaboration We have previously argued that the regulation of health professionals should be viewed in a holistic manner, taking all strategic components shown in Fig. 1 into account, with the aim of creating learning systems of regulation that combine effective checks and balances with a flexible response to global needs for a competent, sufficient workforce [1]

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated the importance of ensuring adequate numbers and a balanced skill-mix of health professionals, as well as the necessity for an overview of how professional competence is developed, maintained and demonstrated across countries. The regulation of curricula for the health professions at the national level usually aims to ensure uniformity across educational programmes. National regulations for the basic curricula of professional education in Europe and the European Economic Area are determined by the EU Directives on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

Results

Conclusion