Event highlights
9 December 2024
Small countries are leading the way in improving their health workforces with many achievements. For example, in October 2022, Malta launched its Health Workforce Strategy (2022–2030) “Supporting and empowering the health workforce”. The Strategy is now in full swing with its 3 main pillars of enhancing equity, ensuring sustainability and implementing innovation. To help develop its Strategy, Malta successfully implemented WHO’s Health Workforce Planning Tool, which has led to longer-term and evidence-based workforce planning. The country has also increased the numerus clausus (enrolment number) for students in medical school and other medical professions; carried out task shifting with dental radiography being shifted from radiographers to dental hygienists and dental assistants, thereby having more specialists trained and available for conducting procedures; and upskilled students through training.
Another small country, Iceland, has a National Human Resources and Education Council to improve links between education and training. Human resources for health (HRH) data is of increasing interest in Iceland and has made it possible to understand what the country already has in place and what it needs for health workforce planning. Iceland’s challenges include the changing roles of the health workforce, the sharing of information between health professionals, the lack of clinical cases in many specialties to maintain competence, and the need to maintain a strong gender perspective, as some health professions have traditionally been male-dominated and others remain predominantly female. Innovative solutions being considered in Iceland include increased autonomy for nurses, with opportunities for specialized study; reducing the need for referrals from doctors, for example to physiotherapists and paediatricians; increasing interdisciplinary collaboration, for example in primary health care; and waiving university student loans.
Planning for a resilient health workforce
Over the course of 2 days, participants in the Small Countries Initiative learned about the ins and outs of developing sustainable health workforce projections, acquired hands-on experience using WHO’s Health Workforce Planning Tool, and had a glance at the steps needed to carry out a health labour market analysis in countries. The meeting provided the perfect opportunity for further exchange with the participating countries, which described the occasion as “extremely relevant” and “highly recommended and useful for a better understanding of HRH issues with a special focus on policy development and planning”.
The Small Countries Initiative, Human Resources for Health (SCI HRH) working group meeting was hosted by the Ministry for Health and Active Ageing, Malta, and coordinated with the SCI Secretariat, based at the WHO European Office for Investment for Health in Development and the Health Workforce and Service Delivery Unit at WHO/Europe. It held its first meeting in Venice, Italy, in 2019, and has met 4 times since then.
In December 2023, an SCI HRH meeting was held prior to the 15th Anniversary Conference of the WHO Tallinn Charter “Health Systems for Health and Wealth” (12–13 December 2023) in Tallinn, focusing on trust and transformation as key factors for strengthening the resilience of health systems.
This working group has been progressively moving towards identifying solutions to health workforce challenges since its start and will report back in 2025 at the Eleventh High-level meeting of the SCI in Slovenia (May 2025).
Event notice
The Small Countries Initiative, Human Resources for Health working group (SCI HRH) will meet in Malta on 23–24 October. The meeting brings together SCI HRH focal points from 10 of the 12 SCI countries – Andorra, Cyprus, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia, San Marino and Slovenia.
Countries plan to share progress in developing HRH strategies or plans and map out actions.