Boosting Europe’s resilience with better health systems: Lessons from the COVID-19 crisis
2020-04-16 12:00
The current COVID-19 crisis has highlighted crisis management deficiencies at both the European and national level and revealed the uneven capacity of European health systems to cope with this enormous external shock.
In a commentary recently published by the European Policy Centre, the authors, Claire Dhéret and Simona Guagliardo, argue that the EU and its member states must learn from the current pandemic if they are to improve their health systems and build up their resilience before the next one hits. Their ability to draw the lessons of this crisis will determine their resilience to address future pandemics.
While the EU has very limited competences in the area of health, it can still support a more equal development of health systems’ resilience across Europe. To do so, two key lessons need to be drawn. Firstly, the EU needs to exclude social investment from future public deficit calculations. Secondly, the EU must make the convergence of working conditions a key objective of the Single Market, with a specific focus on health professionals.
Full article available here: http://www.epc.eu/en/Publications/Boosting-Europes-resilience~3160a0
Authors’ contact details:
Claire Dhéret; [email protected]
Simona Guagliardo; [email protected]
