News
The Second Invitational Meeting of European Colleges and Associations of General Practice/Family Medicine
From 10–12 June 2011, the Portuguese Association of General Practitioners (APMCG) hosted this invitational meeting in Lisbon in collaboration with Wonca Europe. Around 40 delegates from 19 different European countries participated. During Wonca Europe Council meetings, there is only limited time to debate broader issues. This Invitational Meeting was organized to provide the opportunity to discuss several important issues that are on the European agenda and need careful discussion and reflection. The outcome could be a starting point for further discussion in the council. The participants worked in different groups, discussing some issues only in one group and other issues in all groups.
The future structure of Wonca Europe Council and Executive Board?
Should the structure of Wonca Europe Council and Executive Board (EB) be adapted, taking the development of new Networks, Wonca Europe Special Interest Groups (WESIGs) and the Vasco da Gama Movement of trainees and young doctors (VdGM) into account? What about the position of the traditional Networks? The importance of the WESIGs was stressed, as they link the content of our work with the work of specialists based in secondary care. The general feeling was that there should be a change in structure. However, there was no consensus on the changes needed. In Council meetings, time should be scheduled to discuss this important issue.
Wonca Europe's 20th anniversary in 2015
Aside from an exchange of ideas on how to celebrate the anniversary, the group who discussed this topic concluded that much has been achieved thinking on the New Definition of General Practice/Family Medicine, the Educational agenda by Euract, the Research agenda of EGPRN, all the statements by the Networks, the many courses organized by the Networks, and the birth and growth of the Vasco da Gama Movement. Wonca Europe can be proud about these achievements, but there is still much work left to do.
Looking to the future, it is important to determine the current state of General Practice/Family Medicine in Europe. Which countries need support in their development? What are common challenges? Ensuring a sufficient workforce, both in numbers and adequately trained, is a great challenge for the future. As Europe experiences demographic changes in many countries, faces changes in the morbidity patterns—i.e. less communicable diseases and more chronic diseases—it might be necessary to review the competencies also. Another change will be the greater role of prevention, partly based on our growing knowledge of genetics.
In many countries, the health care system is reorganized. New financial models are implemented, e.g. a joint budget and administration of hospital and primary care for a region. Differences in access to care remain an important issue, especially in urban inner cities with illegal immigrants being deprived of care.
In conclusion, when looking at future tasks Wonca Europe should not only address education, research and quality of care, but it also needs to have a message on the organization of health care as well. Further collaboration with the European Union of General Practitioners (UEMO) and the European Forum on Primary Care (EFPC) is needed.
Sustainability of general practice/family medicine
Although there are different levels of development of General Practice/Family Medicine in European countries, the problem seems to be universal: acceptance of GP/FM. That acceptance may sometimes be based on evidence, but it is often based on beliefs. Politicians need to be convinced by clear statements and messages. As not to rely on data from Barbara Starfield all the time, it would be a task to collect available European evidence, by collaborating with UEMO and EFPC. Wonca Europe should take its leadership role in marketing ‘the unique selling point of General Practice/Family Medicine’ and setting statements on the development of health care.
Image and visibility of the profession
The image of a low paid physician with a heavy workload will not lead to good recruitment. It will be necessary to show the positive aspects of our profession such as: working independently and making a difference to persons and families, to foster the self-esteem of the profession. Furthermore, we might engage more with the public in promoting the fact that we are trustworthy, caring, community oriented and directed at their personal health and happiness.
Within Wonca Europe the website should play an important role in providing information that can be used by different countries but also by individual doctors. The role of social media (such as Facebook) will become much more important and it cannot be ignored as something for youngsters only.
Why Wonca Europe?
In the final session the discussion focused on the question: ‘Why do we need Wonca Europe’ and ‘What can Wonca Europe do?’ One of the delegates formulated: ‘Wonca Europe is our best friend,’ meaning that Wonca Europe brings together the different Colleges and Associations who go basically through the same process and experience or have experienced the same difficulties. Wonca Europe can support countries in their debate with governments, based on statements on health care, education, research, and quality. Countries could ask Wonca Europe for specific support, which Wonca EB could provide or maybe could come from other European countries. An important task for Wonca Europe would be to describe itself more clearly: What is Wonca Europe, what are the Networks, what are the WESIGS, what is the VdGM, where does Wonca Europe stand for. This message should be communicated more clearly at all possible occasions such as the yearly conference book, brochures, the website, and the European Journal of General Practice.
A further conclusion of the meeting was that although many ideas were exchanged the implementation process had still to start, which will take efforts from all colleges and associations.
Obituary Barbara Starfield
It was a sad moment during the last session, when we received the news that Barbara Starfield had died on the opening day of the Invitational meeting. Her name had been mentioned in many discussions, indicating her importance to general practice/family medicine and primary care. The participants vowed to continue their efforts to bring equity of primary care to all people in memory of her endless journey to promote primary care.