Mid-term review of the European Action Plan for Strengthening Public Health Capacities and Services

Abstract

The European Action Plan for Strengthening Public Health Capacities and Services has been drawn up in response to the WHO Regional Committee for Europe's resolution EUR/RC61/R2, through which the Regional Committee mandated the WHO Regional Office for Europe to lead the process of developing the Action Plan and to submit it to the Regional Committee for consideration at its 62nd session in September 2012, together with the new European health policy framework, Health 2020. The Action Plan has been finalized based on a broad consultative process and feedback from discussions at the European High-Level Policy Forum meetings in Israel (November 2011) and Brussels (April 2012), two subregional technical consultations in Helsinki (January 2012) and Brussels (March 2012), a written consultation process with European ministers of health, a WHO expert meeting on revision of the essential public health operations (EPHOs) in March 2012, and the SCRC sessions in November 2011, March 2012 and May 2012. This document outlines some of the major challenges facing health policies and systems in the WHO European Region, including consideration of public health services and infrastructures and the public health aspects of health care services. It is informed by the evidence gathered through the process of the WHO/Europe-led evaluation of public health services in over 20 European countries, the Review of Public Health Capacities in the European Union and additional studies on policy tools and instruments for public health, as well as a " snapshot analysis " of organizational models for delivering the EPHOs. These reports will be presented to the Regional Committee at its 62nd session as information documents. In view of differences in the ways in which European health systems and public health services are organized, operated and governed, this paper is consistently based on a clear statement concerning public health and health systems, including definitions, boundaries and concepts as endorsed by the Regional Committee in resolution EUR/RC61/R2. The paper proposes a revised set of ten horizontal EPHOs, including the core public health services within each one of them, to become the unifying and guiding basis for any European health authority to set up, monitor and evaluate policies, strategies and actions for reforms and improvement in public health. It puts forward specific actions and measures to move towards attainment of the objectives along ten major " avenues " that European Member States and the Regional Office and its international partners intend to follow in order to strengthen public health capacities and services and secure the delivery of the ten EPHOs in an equitable way across the whole Region. An annex contains a list of the proposed revised EPHOs drawn up by WHO/Europe's Public Health Services Expert Group, piloted by 17 Member States since 2007 and consulted with all Member States and a number of external partners in 2011–2012 in line with the Regional Committee resolution. This Action Plan, together with Health 2020, is presented for final adoption by the Regional Committee at its sixty-second session. It is in line with the priorities proposed for WHO under the current WHO reform in the category " Health systems strengthening " , which has been the umbrella of the public health work in the WHO European Region, and with the Tallinn Charter: Health Systems for Health and Wealth. A draft resolution is attached, for consideration by the Regional Committee.