Making progress towards health workforce sustainability in the WHO European Region

ABSTRACT

Recognition that health system effectiveness and improvements in population health are critically dependent on an appropriately skilled, supported and deployed health workforce is growing. This paper reports on progress in recent years on achieving the aims and objectives of the WHO global code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel in the European Region, within the broader context of challenges to human resources for health (HRH), and Health 2020, the European policy for health and well-being. Meeting HRH challenges will require effective monitoring of health workforce flows, improved workforce planning that is well integrated with transformative education of the health workforce, and effective retention, distribution and skill mix to improve overall health workforce performance. WHO is collaborating with partners to improve the evidence base on health workforce trends, effectiveness and sustainability, facilitating collaboration between countries and supporting networking and the process of advocacy, communication, monitoring and information-exchange within the Region, and building technical capacity in countries.