Blueprint Alliance for a Future Health Workforce Strategy on Digital and Green Skills: BeWell project kicks-off
This month a consortium of 24 partners from 11 European countries met in Brussels to launch the Blueprint Alliance for a Future Health Workforce Strategy on Digital and Green Skills (BeWell) project.
Led by the European Health Management Association (EHMA), the consortium is committed to developing a strategy, in partnership with a wide range of healthcare stakeholders, on upskilling and reskilling of the European health workforce. As an alliance, this large-scale skills partnership will be supporting the BeWell strategy and its integration into local, regional, and national plans and will prepare the health workforce for future challenges and ever-changing societal context and evolving expectations.
This European-wide consortium involves a host of skilled partners including employers, trade associations, trade unions, public service unions, non-governmental organisations, research institutions, vocational education and training providers, higher education institutions, industry, health authorities, insurers, as well as organisations representing and bringing the perspectives of health and social care professionals including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, radiologists, and health managers.
With the project commencing on the 1 July, the partners gathered to discuss the tasks, activities and phases of work and planned immediate actions.
“We are delighted to launch BeWell. Writing a strategy to modernise the health workforce, we recognise, will only be successful if we involve all stakeholders. This is why our consortium brings together a substantial and diverse pool of leaders including professional groups such as nurses, doctors and health managers, students, industry, education institutions, and many more. The project has also gained support from multiple Directorate Generals of the European Commission including SANTE (cf. Health and Food Safety), GROW (cf Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs), , and EMPL (cf. Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion). This level of support and engagement gives us confidence that over the four years of the project we will be able to deliver a strategy that is implemented at all levels including local, regional, national, and European.” – George Valiotis, Executive Director of EHMA, and Project Coordinator of BeWell.
The project will:
- Contribute to the Pact for Skills initiative under the European Skills Agenda 2020 aiming to empower the healthcare workforce to participate in the twin transition. The Pact will facilitate collaboration between a wide range of public and private stakeholders by setting up a large-scale skills partnership embracing local, regional, and national levels;
- Undertake a review of the existing upskilling and reskilling initiatives and Open Education Resources;
- Develop a green and digital skills strategy for the health ecosystem and will build comprehensive curricula and training programmes that will be piloted and assessed during the lifetime of the project. With the experience and lessons learnt from the piloting phase, partners will refine and finalise the strategy.
“BeWell should empower health workers to build healthier and more resilient societies. It will not only tap into the potential of investments in skills of health professionals of today but will also prepare the next generation of health workers. This initiative can reply to Europe’s societal call for more accessible and more effective health systems. It would be crucial to ensure that patients’ experience and needs are taken into account in the design and roll out of curricula. Health professionals know best the needs of patients, so working closely with them is a precondition to fully exploit the potential of this initiative.” – Katarzyna Ptak-Bufkens, Policy Officer at DG SANTE.
The project will run for 4 years coming to a close on 31 June 2026.
Further information
To learn more about the project and get engaged, please contact: Georgia Karyami, BeWell Programme Manager, georgia.karyami@ehma.org
Stay tuned and follow the project’s developments on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union under Grant Agreement number 101056563.