Please find below the Manifesto sent by the President Timofte on behalf of ENC to the Presidents of the Political Groups of the European Parliament:
Dear President,
I am writing to you in my capacity as President of the European Nursing Council (ENC), the single body bringing together national regulatory bodies of nursing at the European level.
The recent pandemic has once more proven the crucial importance of nurses for the functioning of National Health Systems. As regulators of the profession, we aim to ensure that European citizens and patients will continue to receive healthcare of the highest standards across the EU by actively promoting excellence in nursing competences and practice, upholding professional standards, strengthening continuous professional development, and guaranteeing the strict observance of codes of conduct.
In that context, the renewed European Parliament, which is going to assume the responsibility of the Union’s legislation till June 2029, is of capital interest for our membership.
It is thus natural that we would be deeply interested to know what are the views and positions of your political family on several issues, that we feel are going to shape the future of our professions, and that of the lives of the millions we advise and serve:
Labor shortages in the field of healthcare professions, and especially regarding nursing, are extremely worrying. ENC is convinced that the key to address this dangerous shortage is to motivate young persons to undertake high level studies of nursing by guaranteeing that their work after university will be adequately recognized and remunerated. At the same time,
currently serving and future nurses should be encouraged to stay in the profession by an effort of governments to seriously improve working conditions and salaries.
As the use of AI in the field of healthcare is constantly increasing, it is also crucial that legislators understand the importance of person-to-person interactions between citizens and highly qualified professionals, especially when those in need of care and advice are vulnerable.
Since several years, and especially after the pandemic, the transformations brought by the introduction of digital reality to our professional exercise have facilitated many of our tasks but have also raised serious challenges to our work. The dangers related to seeking medical or health-related information online are now very well known. Further regulatory work to limit them is, in our view, absolutely necessary. Adapting the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of our professions to the digital world is also extremely important, especially in the context of the Single Market and the automatic recognition of professional qualifications. ENC has called, by means of several letters to the last Presidencies of the Council, for a European CPD framework aiming to harmonize the requirements for professionals to keep their knowledge up to date. Guaranteeing that citizens receive scientifically updated advice and services is key for public health and safety. We strongly feel that the European Parliament must call upon the Commission to bring up legislative proposals guaranteeing that professionals across the EU have the same level of CPD and are thus able to propose informed services of the highest quality to the citizens everywhere within the Single Market.
Strengthening the European Health Union is of the highest importance in the context of the fight against future pandemics or health-related terrorism. Investing in health, developing new digital tools, and further boosting knowledge-sharing are efficient means for this. At the same time however, the European Parliament must push for the strengthening of the European Union’s competencies in matters of health, notably in the context of a future revision of the Treaties, as well as for including healthcare concerns in every new piece of legislation.
Thanking you in the name of all our membership for your attention on these points, I remain at your disposal to discuss the above, and I look forward to sharing your views with professional across the European Union.
Sincerely yours,
Mircea Timofte
President of the European Nursing Council (ENC)