23.01.2012
NDPHS urges for more health on the regional agenda
NDPHS urges for more health on the regional agenda
Please read the following article by the NDPHS Secretariat!
Health is important both as a human right and as a precondition for economic growth. It is also widely recognized that regional cooperation in health helps to address common challenges by joining forces and avoiding duplication of efforts and resources. Yet, only a few European funding programmes currently operating in the Northern Dimension area have explicitly included health among their priorities. As a result, health-related projects receive considerably less funding compared to other, more visible sectors.
The ongoing discussions about the EU Financial Framework after 2013 provide an opportunity for a change. The Cohesion policy package proposed by the European Commission lists e-health, health infrastructure, inequalities in health and healthy ageing among many other investment priorities. Whether these will be translated into priorities of the funding programmes depends on the EU Member States and their support to the Commission’s proposal and on the design of the funding programmes by the programming committees.
With economic and other, more visible issues on the top of the European political agenda, decision makers may postpone prioritizing health. However, the aging of society, the growing epidemic of diabetes and lack of effective antibiotics cannot be postponed. These are only a few concrete examples of growing problems. If we postpone addressing them now, the consequences will affect every member of the society in the forthcoming decades. For example, it is estimated that the number of Europeans aged 65 and over will increase by 45% in the next 20 years. Age-related expenditure will cost the EU 4.7% more of GDP by 2060 as a result of a higher share of retired people and a higher number of people with chronic non-communicable diseases.
By investing in health promotion and optimization of the delivery of health care, the economic gain would be two-fold: (i) healthy people are more likely to stay at the labour market longer and are more productive and (ii) reduced spending on treatment of ill health. In this context, it is of utmost importance to spend money effectively and focus on the right priorities. Regrettably, this is not always the case. For example, even though it is widely known that non-communicable diseases are preventable, only 3% of the health expenditure in the EU is spent on prevention. Furthermore, the potential of e-health in optimizing health care delivery is far from being fully exploited.
Although organisation and delivery of health care is a national competence, investment in regional cooperation in health is advantageous and essential. The main health-related challenges, that the European countries are currently facing, are the same. Consequently, it is only logical to coordinate the responses to common challenges, in order to bridge gaps and speed up innovation processes, avoid duplication of efforts and limited resources, and allow for well-informed policy and decision making. EU funding programmes are a useful tool in this regard, but it is important that health be visibly exposed among the funding priorities of operational programmes under different objectives of the EU Cohesion Policy.
To that end, on 25 November 2011 the 8th ministerial-level Partnership Annual Conference of the NDPHS adopted the position paper “Post-2013 European Programmes: Raising the Profile of Health and Social Well-being.”[1] The paper contains views of the ten NDPHS Partner Countries and nine Partner Organizations, supported by several other regional stakeholders and it calls for a visible exposure of social well-being and health in the cooperation programmes’ priorities. Among the key messages of the paper is that timely investment in health and social well-being is an important precondition for economic growth and containing future health and social care related costs.
Another issue addressed in the position paper is the need to ensure cohesion between European programmes and the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR), to avoid a fragmented approach by linking funded activities to a common goal rather than funding random activities with limited strategic vision. Furthermore, the NDPHS suggests to engage the EUSBSR Priority Area Coordinators in the development of the respective forthcoming European programmes’ priorities to ensure better alignment of funding and coordinated vision in responding to key challenges facing the region.
Surveys indicate that individuals place health among the top priorities in their life and a recent Eurobarometer survey ranks healthcare system among the main concerns of the Europeans. The priorities and concerns of our people should be properly reflected on the regional cooperation agenda. The adopted NDPHS position paper is a basis for our further work, which, we hope, will result in more resources being granted for joint regional activities in the field of health for the benefit of our people and economies.
NDPHS Secretariat
[1] Available at: http://ndphs.org/?database,view,paper,67.