Wonca Europe website: http://www.woncaeurope.org
New Wonca Europe executive board
The council took the final vote on the Wonca Europe Executive Board. For the period 2010–2013 the composition is:
Tony Mathie, President; Anna Stavdal, Vice- president; Job FM Metsemakers, Honorary Secretary; Carl Steylaerts, Honorary Treasurer; Janko Kersnik, EURACT representative; Mehmed Ungan, EGPRN representative; Tina Eriksson, EQUIP representative; Barbara Toplek, Wonca Europe secretariat
The council thanked the outgoing members of the executive board, and especially Igor Svab, the past president who has served Europe in many functions over past decades.
The Malaga Statement
During the Malaga conference The Malaga Statement: Primary care as a sustainable way to improve the efficiency of national health systems was signed by Dr Tony Mathie, president of Wonca Europe, and Dr Josep Basora, president of semFYC, the Spanish Society of Family Medicine. The statement builds on the resolution of the World Health Assembly (WHA 62.12) called Primary health care, including health system strengthening. Although all governments have accepted this resolution in which primary care (and especially family doctors), is described as the most suitable direction of health care development, the conference was viewed as a good opportunity to bring it to the attention of the Spanish government.
The Malaga Statement can be found on the Wonca Europe website.
Policy statement on prevention and health promotion in primary care
The European Network for Prevention and Health Promotion in General Practice/Family Medicine (EUROPREV) had prepared a document, Policy statement on prevention and health promotion in primary care, as a reaction to several observations.
They observed that recommendations on preventive care may come from multiple sources, sometimes contradicting each other; that although the evidence on effectiveness and efficiency of some preventive interventions is not always well assessed, they still are promoted; and that the agenda of diseases, that doctors are encouraged to prevent, may be influenced by commercial interests, resulting in low priority given to prevention of certain areas of ill-health such as psychosocial problems.
Based on the observations made, the statement sets out a policy that recognises that prevention and health promotion form an important part of daily practice, but also describes the boundaries of a proper approach to prevention and health promotion. The policy statement was accepted by Wonca Europe and has been forwarded to Wonca World for consideration as a world policy statement.
The Policy statement on prevention and health promotion in primary care can be found on the Wonca Europe website.
Revision of the European definition of general practice/family medicine
The latest version of the European definition of general practice/family medicine was accepted in 2005. Since then, several developments have taken place and based on a proposal by Giorgio Visentin and Ernesto Mola (both from Italy), Wonca Europe council considered the proposal to include ‘patient empowerment and self management education’ into the definition. In addition, the concept of ‘continuous quality improvement’ was regarded as important. A working party has been set up under the leadership of Ernesto Mola to progress this issue.