What changed between the plenary report and the adopted text

24. Recognises that young health professionals are at increased risk of work-related pressure and inappropriate workload allocation, and calls for the establishment of robust mentorship and support systems within the workplace to promote their well-being, professional development and retention in the sector;

25. Supports the development of targeted and equitable deployment of telemedicine, AI and other innovative technologies, including the necessary infrastructure, balanced national regulation, the necessary continuous digital education and training of healthcare professionals and, where relevant, patients, and measures to support equitable access, as a tool complementing in-person care to address healthcare inequalities; underlines that face-to-face care remains the priority; calls for the integration of secure, interoperable telemedicine solutions, such as remote patient monitoring for chronic conditions, to improve care continuity, address medical deserts and alleviate the pressure on the healthcare workforce; stresses that all digital and technological innovations in the pharmaceutical sector should support, and not supplant, the territorial network of pharmacies in their public service function so as to ensure high standards of quality and safety;

26. Takes note of the Commission President’s announcement of the new global health resilience initiative to strengthen health systems resilience and ensure preparedness for pandemics as well as natural and human-induced disasters; in this regard calls on the Member States to ensure sufficient resources to coordinate with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to monitor and observe global health developments and timely local detection of global phenomena; underlines that the Union prevention, preparedness and response plan for health crises and Member States’ plans should ensure the continuity of care during health crises, including natural or other disasters, uphold patients’ rights under Directive 2011/24/EU on cross-border healthcare and protect the health and safety of the healthcare workforce;

27. Urges the Member States to set up national pharmacy workforce strategies to define hospital and community pharmacists’ roles in integrated care; acknowledges community pharmacies as front-line health facilities and essential health infrastructure while respecting national competences and the diversity of healthcare system models; stresses the urgent need to strengthen the hospital pharmacy workforce; recognises that scientific progress is transforming the role of pharmacists and calls for greater support for the profession and for measures to facilitate the free movement of pharmacists to improve workforce flexibility, acknowledges the pivotal role of pharmacists in the handling, disposal and recycling of medical products, in particular to reduce the pollution from pharmaceuticals, and encourages the Member States to go further with public awareness raising and training initiatives;

28. Encourages the Member States to explore, in close consultation with professional and patient organisations, evidence-based models for the gradual upskilling of pharmacists to support the long-term management of patients living with chronic conditions, ensuring that any potential extension of prescribing responsibilities is accompanied by appropriate training, regulatory safeguards grounded in patient safety and quality assurance mechanisms;

Recruitment, mobility and training of healthcare workforce

29. Calls on the Member States to boost high-quality education of the healthcare workforce, combined with high-quality mentorships to support the transition to the labour market, promote lifelong learning and flexible career progression pathways and invest in training pathways including upskilling, in order to safely integrate new technologies and task-shifting where clinically appropriate; encourages cooperation between the Member States on strengthening training capacities and pathways, including language and digital skills, and knowledge that is region-specific and adapted to the geographical context, return-to-work programmes and the recognition of informal skills; calls on the Member States, with the support of the Commission, to take coordinated measures on the basis of high-quality data, aimed at achieving self-sufficiency in education and at training adequate numbers of healthcare workers for their national needs, including in the specialisations and areas with the most severe shortages, thus promoting sustainable and efficient workforce planning to avoid over-burdening certain healthcare professionals; stresses the need to increase investment in higher education for healthcare professions and to promote EU-level and national campaigns encouraging young people to stay and work in their home healthcare systems to prevent further brain drain; calls on the Commission to facilitate and the Member States to undertake the exchange of best practice across the EU through healthcare expertise transfer, in order to strengthen equal access to healthcare;

30. Urges the Member States to build a sustainable cancer workforce to save lives, reduce the burden of cancer in the EU, and achieve the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan objectives;

31. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to take measures to minimise ‘brain waste’ caused by health professionals working in a low- or medium-skilled job positions, for which a degree is not required;

32. Encourages fair labour mobility of the healthcare workforce within the EU facilitated by the Professional Qualifications Directive; stresses in particular the importance of ensuring that qualifications obtained in the EU are recognised in the same way, in line with the principle of equal treatment as set out in Article 14(5) of the directive, and in Commission Recommendation of 15 November 2023 on the recognition of qualifications of third-country nationals (C(2023)7700), Chapter VI, point 51, also in view of mobilising all potential;

34. Calls on the Commission to review the Professional Qualifications Directive in order to include the recognition of qualifications awarded in a digital format, increase the number of professions covered and allow for true portability of qualifications, skills and roles, including in the area of long-term care and improve mutual recognition, including through better common minimum requirements and improved comparability of the education and training of the healthcare workforce across Member States;

35. Emphasises the need to defend science-based medical practices and stresses that the delimitation and EU-wide standardisation of medical practices should not include practices based on procedures lacking scientific support;

36. Encourages the expedited and digitalised recognition of additional qualifications and micro-credentials via the expanded use of common training frameworks for improved retention of the healthcare workforce and enhanced cross-border mobility; further encourages the mobility of healthcare workers and professionals to more advanced work functions backed by the recognition of their qualifications in line with the European qualifications framework for lifelong learning; emphasises the importance of focusing on the recruitment and retention of the healthcare workforce and specifically nurses, as the largest group of healthcare workers, developing motivating career perspectives and accessible training opportunities, while also improving working conditions and supporting the work-life balance;

37. Calls for the EU and the Member States to work towards addressing the challenges faced by Member States with regard to brain drain and to ensure that safeguards are put in place so that mobility does not lead to skills shortages in remote and underserved regions; underlines that labour mobility within the EU should be a choice, not a necessity driven by persistent inequalities in employment and career opportunities across Member States; calls on the Commission to support the Member States most affected by health worker outflows; calls on the Commission and the Member States to establish appropriate incentives for medical and healthcare trainees who choose to complete their training in rural and underserved areas, where healthcare workforce shortages are most acute; furthermore calls for the creation of programmes to facilitate the voluntary return of EU healthcare workers currently employed in other Member States or outside the EU; stresses the importance of giving workers sufficient advance notice in the event of relocation in accordance with the directive on transparent and predictable working conditions in the EU;

38. Stresses that the EU and the Member States should invest in education and training including continuous upskilling, for a sustainable, resilient and highly qualified healthcare workforce, including by means of EU-funded programmes, ensuring availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of the healthcare workforce as referred to in various WHO reports, and as a core component of resilient health systems, ensuring everyone in the EU has access to high-quality healthcare; stresses that a competent, ethically grounded and well-recognised public health workforce is essential for prevention, preparedness and response to health threats; calls on the Commission and the Member States to converge national and EU-level actions with the WHO-ASPHER Roadmap to professionalizing the public health workforce in the European Region; underlines that maintaining high standards of education and training is important to ensure the attractiveness of health professions and to guarantee patient safety and quality of care; calls on the Commission to conduct a coordinated assessment of medical education and training in the EU to help ensure that the allocation of additional resources is better targeted on addressing current workforce shortages; calls for a long-term cohesion policy in order to increase the capacity of Member States to provide education and training opportunities for more people in the healthcare sector;

39. Calls for healthcare workforce gaps to be closed by the end of the next multiannual programming period in 2034, which requires a combination of incentives, including education and training within the EU, retention strategies, intra-EU mobility and ethical international recruitment; underlines that addressing the structural challenges the sector faces is key to improving the attractiveness of the sector, facilitating the recruitment of young people and people looking for a career change, and enabling those who have left the healthcare sector to return, as well as to ensuring higher retention rates; emphasises that retaining existing staff is the most effective and cost-efficient way to stabilise health systems; stresses that reinforcing cross-border healthcare collaboration can help address workforce shortages, safeguard equitable access to care, and uphold fair working and mobility conditions for healthcare professionals within the EU;

40. Calls on the Commission, in cooperation with the Member States, to improve access to diversified training pathways including university, vocational education and training and specialist training, apprenticeships, reskilling and upskilling; calls for provisions to ensure that dedicated time for professional training and development is allotted in individual employment contracts; calls for the safeguarding and enhancement of good practice in the EU for cooperation in medical education to benefit both source and destination countries; asks the Commission, in this regard, to enable Member States to make full use of EU funding instruments, such as EU4Health, the ESF+, Horizon Europe and cohesion policy resources in order to address the most critical workforce shortages, update curricula, strengthen digital and interdisciplinary skills, so as to facilitate the recruitment and retention of the healthcare workforce and facilitate the voluntary return and reintegration of healthcare professionals to their countries of origin; stresses that cohesion policy instruments, including the ESF+ and EU4Health programmes, should be used to finance targeted incentives, mentorship schemes and centres of excellence that enable the transfer of skills and knowledge between Member States; calls on the Member States, with the possible support of EU funding, to promote the mobility of students and young professionals in the healthcare sector, through scholarships, while also targeting those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, taking national contexts into account, and in cooperation with social partners;

41. Recommends the introduction at both EU and national level of incentives for making rare specialities attractive for doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists, paramedics and other medical or non-medical/healthcare professionals who complete advanced education and training pathways, including in emergency situations and in areas that are difficult to cover, such as the many medical deserts across the EU;

42. Encourages the EU and the Member States to update their legislative frameworks and further encourage tertiary institutions to develop curricula reflecting the changing medical and technological landscape, in order to review common training standards across countries and specialities and adapt national procedures for the renewal of licences for healthcare professionals and to enable cross-border portability in this changing landscape;

43. Encourages the Member States to promote training in communication for healthcare professionals; calls on the Commission and the Member States to support and fund public awareness and health literacy campaigns aimed at increasing the attractiveness of the healthcare professions, encouraging young people to pursue careers in the sector, strengthening overall health literacy among the population, and at involving healthcare workers in promoting accurate health information to build resilience to misinformation;

44. Encourages the Member States to take a life cycle approach to medical and nursing careers, supporting education and professional skills, with structured progression from entry-level roles to leadership, including through enhanced career supervision and mentorship with a particular focus on women and young professionals; calls on the Commission and the Member States to give greater recognition to the role and rights of formal and informal carers in integrated care;

45. Encourages the Member States to assess the skills mix within the healthcare workforce, and reshape task schemes by introducing task-shifting where relevant, including the possibility of delegating tasks to specialist and advanced practice nurses and qualified healthcare staff, or health services in pharmacies, building on models already effective in the EU, and to explore evidence-based models and effective models of collaboration and supervision, including skills- and task-sharing, while ensuring adequate training, supervision, high safety standards and quality of care, as well as clear accountability structures; emphasises the need for EU-level guidance, following consultation with relevant social partners, on safe and evidence-based task-shifting and task-sharing; reiterates that any delegation or transfer of tasks must be accompanied by mutually agreed professional responsibilities, a clearly defined scope of practice, and appropriate accountability mechanisms and remuneration commensurate with the new responsibilities; stresses the importance of including, among others, nurses and midwives, in the development of health policies, in line with WHO Europe recommendations;

46. Highlights the potential of advanced practice nurses to strengthen the healthcare workforce, particularly in terms of addressing shortages in rural, suburban, remote and island regions; underlines that expanding and recognising advanced nursing roles can help improve access to care, support primary healthcare delivery and alleviate the strain on an already overstretched healthcare workforce; calls on the Commission and the Member States to promote the development, education and mutual recognition of such roles within the EU as part of the upcoming sustainable and resilient healthcare workforce strategy; calls on the Commission and the Member States to facilitate the exchange of best practice regarding national regulations on funding and payment systems that ensure quality, safety, accountability, fair compensation and recognition in advanced nursing roles;

47. Stresses the need for the recruitment of ancillary staff bearing in mind the full optimisation and extension of the skills mix;

Supporting the healthcare workforce through digital transformation

48. Stresses the need for the Member States to cooperate more closely with the OECD, the ILO and the WHO to improve their registries’ methodologies and set up and develop interoperable and standardised digital systems to support real-time collection, mapping and analysis of data on the healthcare workforce; considers it important that these digital systems include data on factors driving professional career choices and trends in training needs, working-environment-related needs, turnover, gender and equality indicators, training uptake and digital skills, segments of the social care workforce integrated with healthcare services, mobility of healthcare professionals, the outflow into other sectors and their total number, workloads, including rest and overtime, employment status, statistics on foreign-trained nationals in the healthcare sector and regional disparities in such digital systems; underlines that such systems should enable forecasting, capacity planning and evidence-based decision-making to better anticipate future workforce needs and identify systemic bottlenecks, including by specialisation and level of care, as well as coordination gaps between the health and social care sectors; calls for the inclusion of data from both public and private healthcare providers so as to give a full picture of healthcare capacity, ensuring that data-driven innovative solutions complement broader strategies to improve recruitment and retention, enhance working conditions and improve patient outcomes;

49. Calls for continuous professional development of healthcare professionals in digital skills, biotechnology and other innovative technologies, and, where clinically appropriate, AI-supported diagnostics; calls for systematic support for education and training through simulation-based programmes and digital literacy initiatives, allowing for continuous education for healthcare professionals in line with the requirements of the Professional Qualifications Directive; underlines the need to ensure education and training on the use of new technologies and digital tools for all healthcare professionals; recognises that levels of digital literacy vary significantly among healthcare professionals and therefore recommends adopting a lifelong learning approach to continuous upskilling; calls on the Member States to integrate these competencies into the curricula of healthcare education programmes, ensuring that all healthcare professionals acquire the skills necessary to work safely and effectively in technology-supported healthcare environments; bearing in mind that such training should be accessible for all healthcare professionals;

50. Stresses that innovations, including digital tools and technologies, must complement and not replace professional judgement, ensuring person-centred and human care, patient safety and identifiable liability; underlines that digital health systems must be designed based on scientific evidence and be operationally feasible, adapting to local workflows rather than hindering efficiency with fragmented systems or mandatory AI decision-logs; notes that AI-supported tools can also reduce costs and streamline administrative tasks, but underlines in this regard that any clinical decisions must always adhere to the human-in-control principle; calls in addition for alert fatigue to be addressed by encouraging closer cooperation with medical device and software developers to design interoperable and intelligent solutions that reduce unnecessary alerts and improve response accuracy; calls on the Commission to assess the relevance of issuing guidelines on AI at work, particularly regarding AI-enabled devices and tools that use high-risk AI systems as safety components, to ensure the human-in-control principle is guaranteed, notably in the clinical workplace and to pay particular attention to the impact of possible algorithmic management tools deployed in healthcare services in view of the implementation reports envisaged under the Artificial Intelligence Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); calls on the Commission to carry out an impact assessment complemented by a competitiveness and SME test and submit a proposal on algorithmic management in the workplace on the basis of TFEU Article 153(2)(b), in conjunction with TFEU Articles 153(1)(b) and 16(2) and of the result of the aforementioned steps;

51. Supports the digitalisation of administrative processes and the introduction of AI tools to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens; supports the wider use of interoperable tools and analytics for effective workforce management, including the forecasting of retirement trends, regional deployment and skill-gap identification, ensuring data protection and compliance with the GDPR; suggests that these tools should be explicitly designed to mitigate ‘digital paperwork’ and reduce the time spent on electronic documentation, noting that the time spent logged on after working hours to complete administrative work contributes to fatigue and intent-to-leave, and must be minimised to ensure professionals have more time to treat and inform patients; recognises the role of medical secretaries and healthcare administrators in alleviating administrative burdens for healthcare professionals, and supports inclusive digital and AI training for these professional categories as well; calls for the effective use of virtual reality and online tools to enhance professional development opportunities;

52. Stresses the role of secure, interoperable and innovative digital health solutions, aimed at improving the effectiveness of care processes for acute and chronic patients as well as along rehabilitation pathways, and the use of telemedicine including with connected medical devices to support rural and remote areas; calls for the promotion of such solutions to improve workflows and their operational coordination; underlines that, while these technologies can complement and enhance healthcare delivery, they cannot replace the need for an adequately staffed and well-supported healthcare workforce or face-to-face care; calls for the promotion of the digitalisation of administrative processes while ensuring that all innovations serve to support the territorial network of pharmacies rather than to supplant them; reiterates that the regulation of distance pharmaceutical services must comply with national legislation; warns that digital tools developed and introduced without the involvement of healthcare professionals and patients’ organisations often fall short of needs and risk increasing administrative burdens and work-related mental stress;

53. Recognises the potential of the European Health Data Space (EHDS) to improve the efficiency of healthcare in the EU and as an enabler of the secure and interoperable exchange of health data between Member States, building on and complementing national eHealth infrastructure; underlines its potential to strengthen research and system resilience; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that the EHDS supports digital capacity-building, while ensuring safe and secure digital data collection, transparent information provision, while always ensuring informed consent is obtained from patients, and upholding high standards of data protection and professional ethics; urges the Commission, within the existing framework of the Pact for Skills, to support vocational training, higher education and training, and capacity-building measures, including the development of skills initiatives on health data, enabling healthcare professionals to make effective use of the EHDS and other digital tools in their daily practice;

54. Urges the European Commission to promote a Skills Academy on health data and establish a skills framework and staffing chart to support the implementation of integrated health data management across European healthcare systems;

Financing and strategic planning at EU and national level

55. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to invest and coordinate preparedness and prevention measures, including adopting a preventive healthcare approach, as well as response and recovery measures, building on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and recognising the crucial role played by the healthcare workforce during that crisis, when healthcare workers often faced emotional exhaustion, high exposure to physical and psychosocial risks and increased demand within a context of worsening working conditions and limited flexibility in working arrangements; stresses the need to strengthen public health systems through sustained investments in the healthcare workforce, including improving the number, education and training, and competencies of healthcare personnel, as well as investment in medical equipment, hospitals and innovative health technologies that can enhance efficiency and resilience; highlights the importance of including crisis management, resilience and preparedness modules in professional education and training programmes; calls on the Commission, in cooperation with the Member States, to encourage and monitor investments in the health workforce, including measures to ensure safe staffing levels, and in public healthcare systems in the European Semester; calls for coordinated investments in research and innovation to ensure Europe’s strategic autonomy and the rapid development and manufacturing of medical countermeasures in times of crisis; demands that the Commission and the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council devote significantly more attention to health sector preparedness and the ability to implement the preparedness strategy by more actively exploring shared competences to solve workforce issues within the health minister formats;

56. Calls on the Commission to set up an observatory to coordinate regular monitoring and forward-looking projections of healthcare workforce supply and demand at all levels of the healthcare system, developing indicators that Member States may use to assess the efficiency and safety of their healthcare systems, building on modelling by the Joint Research Centre, OECD reports and WHO initiatives, in collaboration with professional associations and patients’ organisations; encourages the Commission, in cooperation with the Member States, to align the work of the relevant directorates-general to enhance transparency and evidence-based policymaking across Member States; encourages the forecasting of workforce needs to facilitate cross-border healthcare cooperation and rare disease care; stresses that this monitoring should be conducted in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, including patients’ organisations;

57. Emphasises the importance of adequate, robust and sustainable financing to guarantee access to healthcare; calls on the Commission and the Member States to increase public funding in the health sector; stresses that the financial sustainability of health systems is key to ensuring macroeconomic stability and long-term socio-economic resilience; emphasises that targeted investments in healthcare training and education, prevention and health promotion, in strengthening the healthcare workforce and in preparedness for health emergencies can significantly reduce the future burden on health systems and public finances; highlights the need for better and more transparent governance, and for administration to be made more fit for purpose through the reduction of unnecessary administrative burdens, to create higher quality care environments that are better and safer; calls on the Member States to prioritise health investments within their national budgetary frameworks, to ensure not only access to medical services but also job security for the healthcare workforce, ensuring that funding is efficiently allocated to the recruitment, retention, safe staffing levels, upskilling and well-being of the healthcare workforce; advocates for public health financing to ensure that all patients, including those with rare and orphan diseases, are not left behind, while strategically addressing demographic trends and the broader burden of diseases, with a focus on prevention, early detection and intervention; calls on the Commission and the Member States, including in the context of possible future reforms and European preparedness initiatives, to recognise that investing in healthcare provides a long-term strategic benefit that unlocks productive potential and generates economic value that can potentially yield a return far exceeding the initial investment through avoided healthcare costs and increased productivity; urges the Commission and the Member States, on this basis, to prioritise these strategic investments by exploring the flexibilities within EU fiscal rules and assessing the feasibility of excluding healthcare spending from austerity measures, while ensuring budgetary discipline, transparency of expenditure, auditing of the effectiveness of interventions, and respecting national competences in public finance;

58. Recommends an increase in the allocation and efficient use of dedicated EU funding (EU4Health, Horizon Europe, European Structural and Investment Funds, Erasmus+, Digital Europe, etc.) in the MFF 2028-2034 to support an integrated approach to workforce planning, safe staffing levels, recruitment, education and training, retention and innovation in the healthcare sector, with particular attention to regions facing acute shortages, offering incentives for healthcare workers choosing to work in underserved areas; supports the strategic use of ESF+ and cohesion policy instruments to help Member States implement sustainable healthcare workforce strategies; stresses that the demographic challenge of an ageing population is one of the primary drivers of increased demand on healthcare delivery and the healthcare workforce, and must be recognised as a political priority; notes with concern that long waiting times, exacerbated by workforce shortages, undermine timely access to care, leading to poorer health outcomes, and stresses that delayed diagnosis and treatment increase healthcare costs and place additional strain on emergency and long-term care systems; notes with concern the lack of a dedicated budget line for health in the post-2027 MFF proposal, and stresses that adequate health-related funding must be safeguarded and ring-fenced within the future MFF framework; calls for an appropriate allocation within future EU funding instruments succeeding the EU4Health programme to support the European healthcare workforce; underlines the importance of a dedicated EU budget for health within each MFF to ensure that EU-funded initiatives addressing healthcare workforce shortages are sustainable, predictable and specifically targeted;

59. Underlines the need for a comprehensive and adequately funded health budget in the 2028-2034 MFF, ensuring the development and implementation of a long-term European Health Workforce Strategy, addressing shortages in the healthcare workforce and ensuring that health systems across the EU are sustainable, resilient and accessible;

Promoting the role of primary care

60. Calls for greater support for general practitioners, nurses, primary dental care providers and the primary healthcare workforce, recognising their pivotal role in prevention, health promotion, early diagnosis, disease management and integrated physical and mental care; calls for this role to be supported by creating incentives for the establishment of general practice clinics and expanding training and education capacities for general medicine, including the generational renewal of the healthcare workforce; insists that EU funding should contribute to financing joint training and digital infrastructure to ensure comprehensive integration of primary care and specialist services, enabling, for instance, the establishment of tele-consultation networks that improve patient access to care and alleviate waiting times; encourages the promotion of prevention and health literacy from a young age to reduce the burden on the primary healthcare workforce; underlines the importance of continuous dialogue with social partners, healthcare workers and other stakeholders, and calls on the Member States to ensure comprehensive consultation processes with regard to any policy changes;

61. Recognises the social aspect of community healthcare, underlines that digital and telehealth solutions should not replace the important role of community healthcare workers, who often cater to the most isolated in our communities, such as the elderly;

62. Stresses that the continuity of the patient-doctor relationship must be safeguarded, as it is essential for quality, trust-based and person-centred care; underlines that every individual should have access to a family or primary care doctor ensuring long-term, ideally lifelong, care continuity, whether provided through public or private healthcare services; calls on the Member States to establish frameworks guaranteeing this right as a cornerstone of sustainable and accessible healthcare systems;

63. Recognises the crucial role of community pharmacists and stresses the importance of ensuring their close collaboration with multidisciplinary primary care teams, while integrating psychologists, physiotherapists, social workers, family nurses and specialised health administrative staff into such teams to reinforce the resilience of healthcare systems and provide coordinated, person-centred care; calls for proper infrastructure, adequate staffing and sufficient consultation time to be ensured for primary care professionals to provide effective preventive and holistic care; recommends improving coordination with informal carers;

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64. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.