Resources hub for sustainable investing in health

The Commission supports the creation of a hub that will enable Austria, Belgium and Slovenia and project promoters to navigate through the various programmes and funding instruments in order to identify how they could best use EU support. It will also provide networking, knowledge sharing and guidance and resources services, as well as targeted services to build the capacity of public authorities for reform design and implementation and project promoters for the planning, development and implementation of large-scale health system transformation projects. 

Context 

Council Conclusions of the Slovenian Presidency, Resolution of the European Parliament on Cohesion policy as an instrument to reduce health care disparities, G20 Rome Declaration of 21 May 2021, National Recovery and Resilience Plans, National Operational Programs.

Support to be delivered

This project is a joint initiative aiming to address three Member States’ needs (Austria, Belgium and Slovenia) in reaching EU funding available for improving the quality of health systems, and in effectively advocating at national and EU level for additional resources for health investment, while ensuring synergies and mutual learning between the Member States. 

The project is structured around two work streams: 

- Work stream 1: Making the case for public investments

WS 1 aims at strengthening the capacity of the three Member States’ Ministries of Health to make the case for public investment in health at national and EU level and demonstrate clear evidence of the socioeconomic benefits of already undertaken or planned public investments in health.  

- Work stream 2: EU health resource Hub

WS2 aims at strengthening the capacity of the three Member States to reach EU funding available for health through support for the design of national ‘competence centres’, while also ‘learning by doing’ via the development of a pilot case as a first exercise for capturing EU funds for health. The lessons from this first capacity building exercise will also serve to design an ‘EU health resources hub’.

Expected results

The hub will be tested on three national pilots contributing to the EU priorities: green & digital.

• Greening of the Austrian Health Care System and contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation in pursuing policies and investments that co-benefit climate and health and reduce the CO2 ecological footprint of the health system;
• Developing integrated care in Belgium by supporting the inter-federal plan, including digitalisation, mental health care and prevention, inter-disciplinary work and coordination between primary care and specialised care, as well as evidence-based and data-informed public health and clinical practices;
• Strengthening and digitalising of primary health care in Slovenia in line with the dedicated recently drafted strategy noticing the important gap in terms of needs of population and available funding, as well as shortages in medical staff as compared to other European Member States. To succeed with the planned reforms proposed by the strategy and to assure sufficient funding for their implementation, Slovenia sees as indispensable to increase the effectiveness of investments needed and ensure funding from different sources including from different Union funds.