EuroHealthNet contributes to the draft opinion on the Organisation of Resilient Health and Social Care following the COVID-19 Pandemic
EuroHealthNet notes the draft EXPH opinion on the Organisation of resilient health and social care following the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the Terms of Reference (ToR) and presents its reaction to it. Overall, the Draft Opinion is a useful contribution to develop strategic approaches to (re-)organisation and strengthening of resilience of health and social care within the EU region. We expect it will support better positioning of the health promotion and disease prevention within those systems as well, following the COVID-19 syndemic.
We welcome this attempt from the Expert Panel to present a comprehensive framework that underpins the opinion, accompanied with potential indicators and buildings blocks. While social care is explicitly mentioned in the opinion, we would like to broaden its strategic focus onto education, social protection, employment or housing. These sectors can also play supportive and integrative roles in delivery of health and social care in modern public policy systems.
Several important points should be addressed and further strengthened in the Opinion. Recommendations given by EuroHealthNet include:
- Adaptive surge capacity and resilience of local health workforce
- Research and development for innovative medicines
- Tackling disinformation
- Linking databases across systems and sectors
- Investments in primary care and mental health and strengthen the integration of these systems
- Equity-driven decision-making
- Health promotion, lifestyle programs and inter-sectoral collaborative actions
- Training focusing on vulnerable groups
- Resilience test toolkit and implementation methodology
- Creation of learning communities
The feedback in full can be found here.
