Inspired by its 2024 study on the workload management of nurses, MS Nurse Professional has been a stark advocate for better working conditions and a more manageable number of tasks to prevent burnout. With this in mind, MS Nurse Pro organised a policy roundtable this February with a variety of stakeholders, including nurses, patients, and policymakers. The goal of the meeting was to discuss the status of MS nurses in EU policy and, by integrating the different approaches of the participants, identify avenues to improve their status.
Representative from the MS Nurse PROfessional community, MS Consultant Nurse, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
To achieve the goal of lowering the workload of nurses, the worldwide shortage needs to be addressed, for example by encouraging young professionals to pursue education in this field. This adds to the reason why training must be made more affordable and accessible to all specialised nurses, since research in this field is constantly evolving and nurses need to be able to have the most up-to-date knowledge.
Another approach could be increasing access to Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDTs) where nurses, psychologists, therapists, occupational therapists, and social workers provide care collaboratively. However, significant differences exist between European systems, so it is of utmost importance to increase harmonisation via allowing qualified nurses to independently prescribe medications and make referrals.
Technology can also be utilised to lower the administrative burden of nurses, one of the leading factors hindering nurses’ ability to spend more time with patients. Over the last couple of years, the introduction of electronic patient records helped overcome this to some extent, though access is still not universal.
Member of European Parliament, Non-attached Member, Substitute, Committee on Public Health
The solution to reducing the human cost of healthcare systems caused by “impossible caseloads” and tremendous amounts of paperwork is giving more authority to nurses. This means enabling them to make direct referrals, prescribe medications and respecting their collective bargaining rights.
Implementation of measures in this area is a national competence, the EU plays only a supportive role. This leads to discrepancies between Member States' healthcare systems.
Healthcare is a sector that should not be profit but outcome oriented, so cost-cutting measures will prevent any positive changes. What is needed here are public investment and affordable and accessible training. The EU is doing a few things to this end, like Euro4Health and Horizon Europe, but it is not enough. The MFF should also allocate more funds to the healthcare sector, because investment in this area is an investment in the future.
Digitalisation can provide an answer to the need to reduce administrative burdens of nurses. Importantly, technologies should serve people, not profit, so their purpose should not be to extract data and minimise costs. So, designs should incorporate the views and opinions of nurses rather than it being a top-down process with input from people without relevant experience. In addition, with the rise of AI, this technology should allow nurses to spend more time with their patients not replace them, nor become a form of workplace surveillance.
Executive Director, European Specialist Nurses Organisation (ESNO)
On a policy level, European institutions should take the initiative to revise the Directive on the Recognition of professional qualification to allow specialised nurses wider – European – access. Unfortunately, recognition of specialised education appears to be at the bottom of the priority list, while, at an interdisciplinary level, it should be first.
Moreover, the SANT Committee of the European Parliament has an upcoming Own-Initiative Report on the unsustainable workplace conditions of healthcare workers, which could be a great avenue to highlight specialised nurses within this framework.
