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The HWF planning in the EU countries – compared to other national contexts – has its specificity, in particular due to the free workers’ movement in the EU. Of course, professions with very specialised and context-dependent skills are less mobile. However, the EU has set a good framework for mutual recognition. According to the EU DG Internal Market database, the health care professionals are among the top 5 categories of professionals with the most registrations.
Also, Europe is setting many mechanisms to improve the international qualifications of young professionals, e.g. through the Erasmus processes, and through the standardisation of curricula and of training processes and their accreditation.
The effect is the migration of health professionals with its dominant East-to-West and South-to-North flows that challenges the forecast of the health professionals’ supply which a country can make with respect to its current workforce. The situation is made even more complex by the countries’ differences in training options and, in some cases, the level of training.
But many challenges will come also on the demand side with EU Directive EU/2011/24, which makes possible the demand for healthcare services in countries other than their own.
In addition, the health care systems of the European Countries are based on the principle of universal coverage, which strongly influences the demand for health services. But, in recent years, this principle is jeopardized by the economic crisis that has forced the EU countries to implement austerity policies. From the HWF planning perspective, this means to have a focus on efficiency and the optimization of human resources.
Download the document [PDF 281 KB] (HWF Planning Specifities)