Building better together

Overview

Nurses and midwives comprise half of the professional health workforce globally, interact with people from birth to death across all types of settings and account for about 90% of contacts between patients and health professionals. They can deliver safe, high-quality, effective and efficient health services, particularly for vulnerable, disadvantaged and hard-to-reach groups. Enabling and supporting nurses and midwives to work to their full potential is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and supporting universal health coverage, and to meeting current and future population health needs. This Roadmap reflects the priorities of the WHO European Programme of Work to set out activities organized according to the four areas of focus of the WHO Global strategic directions for nursing and midwifery 2021−2025 report (education, jobs, leadership and service delivery) across 12 policy priorities. It proposes activities for Member States of the WHO European Region and outlines specific areas of technical support the WHO Regional Office for Europe can provide.