On the May 3rd EPHA attended and participated at the High Level Conference on the success stories and future prospects of the EU Health Programme.
The Conference, entitled EU Health Programmes: results and future perspectives, was jointly organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health Consumers (DG SANCO) and its Executive Agency.
Health Commissioner John Dalli opened the Conference speaking of health as an intrinsic part of the smart, sustainable and inclusive growth agenda. In her key note speech, Paola Testori Coggi (DG SANCO) referred to the controversy behind the title of the proposed programme and mentioned that during this time, it is important to make an economic case for health. Martin Seychell (DG SANCO) gave an overview of the past and current health programmes and stated that given the current demographic and economic challenges and limited human resources, health remains an essential prerequisite for the Europe we want so shape.
The event was attended by policy-makers, NGOs, key health actors, Member States and European Institutions, health academics and researchers. In essence, the event provided a balanced resource for discussion during workshops whose themes ranged from health safety and cross-border threats to health to health information and reducing inequalities.
In the session on the future health programme 2014 – 2020, different actors spoke of their vision, foreseen challenges and expectations. As a panel speaker Monika Kosińska, Secretary General of EPHA, spoke of the importance of having a public health programme for civil society – she also highlighted that the main achievement of the current programme has been to build up a supporting network. For the next health programme, EPHA would like to see health determinants turned into a cornerstone by investing in prevention and fostering a Health In All Policies approach. Ms Kosińska also gave the audience some views on the difficulties of NGOs to get funding for projects and provided her insight about the way civil society -with its diversity, flexibility and networking- can be a useful resource to bring a truly added value.
The Conference also saw the lunch of HEIDI Wiki – Health in Europe: Information and Data Interface – a dynamic, virtual health platform where the EU health community can disseminate health information and develop more evidence based health policies.
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