This is the final of three webinars. An appropriate stock of health and care workers prepared for future tasks is a key condition, but not sufficient, to respond to the crisis. The key challenge is retaining them in the right places while strengthening resilience and sustainability. These difficulties have intensified as the COVID-19 pandemic increased workloads and stress and worsened the mental health and wellbeing of health and care workers, notably, the vast majority of whom are women. The webinar discusses strategies and needs, considering different environments and stakeholders including the situation of young health professionals.

Health and care workers are not primarily a problem, but the core capital of health systems. As transformational agents they are crucial to driving innovation, supporting policy reform, advancing equity and inclusiveness in service provision, and strengthening professional innovation and organisational resilience, often generating co-benefits aligned with other policy areas.

Co-chairs

Ellen Kuhlmann and Tiago Correia, WHO-CC

Panelists

• Gabriela Lotta, Getulio Vargas Foundation, São Paulo, Brazil
• Viola Burau, University of Aarhus, Denmark
• Zuzana Kotherová, Charles University Prag, Czechia
• Klaas Stek, University of Twente, The Netherlands

Commentaries

• Katarzyna Czabanowska, WHO Collaboration Centre for Public Health Leadership and Workforce Development
• Marius Ungureanu, EUPHA section Health and Care Workforce
• Matthias Wismar, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels, Belgium

More information about the webinar series

“The health and care workforce – from crisis to capacities” webinar series will take place this spring and will focus on how countries can move from managing chronic workforce shortages to building long-term capacity across health and care. It connects evidence and policy debate around three core challenges: how to plan, retain, and transform the workforce, bringing together researchers, practitioners and decision-makers.

The series is organised by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Policies and Planning, Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, NOVA University Lisbon (Portugal), in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe, Health Policy/Elsevier Publisher, the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, EUPHA, the EUPHA section Health and Care Workforce, and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Leadership and Workforce Development, Maastricht University (the Netherlands).

The health and care workforce crisis is worsening at a moment of intensifying global health threats when resilient health systems and a stable workforce are needed more than ever, raising important questions about governments’ capacity to respond to multiple, overlapping crises and new health priorities. This webinar series shifts the focus from crisis to capacities, aligning research, policy and practice. Research evidence from a Special Issue is linked to the policy dialogues established by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and WHO.

Hosted by the WHO Collaborating Centre on Health Workforce Policies and Planning in collaboration with the European Observatory on Health Health Systems and Policies, the WHO Regional Office for Europe, Health Policy/Elsevier, the WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Leadership and Workforce Development, the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), and the EUPHA section Health and Care Workforce, this webinar series brings together a broad range of stakeholders. The webinars strengthen dialogue and knowledge exchange with a focus on three major topics: planning, retaining, and transforming the health and care workforce. They contribute new data and evidence providing practical direction for health systems, policymakers, and other leaders to leverage the workforce’s transformative capacities to effectively build a sustainable and resilient workforce for the future.

Publications

Go to the editorial here.
Special Issue of Health Policy, go here.

Organisation

• Scientific Committee: Ellen Kuhlmann, Institute for Economics, Labour and Culture (IWAK), Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany, and Tiago Correia, WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Policies and Planning
• Organising Committee: André Beja, WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Policies and Planning; https://whoccworkforce.ihmt.unl.pt/en/