Established in 2005, the Forum intends to improve the health of the population of Europe and equity in health care delivery by strengthening Primary Care. In several countries of Europe Primary Care is well developed, in others less so. We all can learn from each other, however, and create and seize the opportunities there are to make sure that all countries enjoy the benefits of Primary Care.
The vision and objectives of the Forum have been firmly established in the previous years and appeal to many policymakers, practitioners and researchers in Europe: Strong primary care (PC) produces better health outcomes against lower costs. That is the briefest summary of available scientific evidence. By promoting strong PC the population’s health can be improved. Strong PC does not emerge spontaneously. It requires appropriate conditions at the health care system level and in actual practice to make PC providers able and willing to take responsibility for the health of the population under their care. A key element is effective collaboration with well organized secondary care. Everywhere in Europe the process of strengthening PC is ongoing, with a large diversity in the way PC is organized. Therefore, Europe is in a sense a laboratory landscape of experiments for organizing primary care. There is a strong need to collect and share information about what structures and strategies matter. This is a support to practitioners but will also provide the evidence to convince policy makers at different levels that PC needs to be strengthened.
Current important instruments of the EFPC are:
The next EFPC bi-annual conference in Pisa, Italy on 30–31 August 2010 ‘From patient centred innovation to organizational change’.
The EFPC organizes for the WHO (Geneva) multi-country study visits. The aim of the programme is to disseminate the principles of the World Health Report 2008: Primary Care Now More Than Ever by visiting ‘best practices’ in primary care.
A first Site Based Learning Programme to Ghent (Belgium) and London (UK) took place in the first week of December 2009.
Responding to European Commission Communications on for example the EU Health work-force or on reducing health inequalities in the EU. For the communication titled ‘Solidarity in Health: Reducing health inequalities in the EU’, the EFPC issued its’ own response and Forum members can be satisfied that PC is clearly mentioned as a basic condition for tackling health inequalities:
‘The EU will help countries to use EU funds to improve health of the worst off and narrow health gaps between regions—such as primary care facilities, water and sanitation and housing renewal.’
To be the representative of all professionals active in PC, the EFPC seeks a close collaboration with most professional associations in Europe. For this reason we established a firm relation with WONCA Europe but also with the occupational therapists and pharmacists. This year we have meetings scheduled with the European representatives of nurses (EFN) and midwives and we are confident that other professions as physiotherapist, psychologists, and dentists will follow soon.