Working Group and Network
NFGP Working Group and Network on Sustainable and Value-based Healthcare
Proposal
It is proposed that that NFGP considers establishing a NFGP working group and network on sustainable and value-based health care.
Preparation for establishing such group needs to be done next months with the aim to analyse pros and cons, possible financial obligations and its main aims and methods. This could then to be introduced and discussed at NFGPs next annual meeting 2024.
Background
Climate changes, planetary health, sustainable development, and value-based care have gained more and more attention last year, both in public media and among professionals.
In 2018, NFGP emphasized this trend in its Vision statement: “To promote general practice/family medicine which is salutogenic and sustainable, carefully balancing biomedical and humanistic approaches to health, illness and disease.” This was further followed up by our “Nordic Core Values and Principles…”.year 2020, based on the Norwegian “sju teser” (2001) and the Danish “pejlemærker” from 2016.
In 2019, United Nations published their 17 Sustainable Developmental Goals (UN SDGs, see fig below) to 2030. Health is one of these. However, in in its Health chapter, most of the goals pay attention to fundamental health requirements, such as water supply, vaccination, sanitation etc.
In 2022, WONCA Europe endorsed and accepted our new version of WE Vision and Mission (Anna Stavdal was chairing this working group, other members were Johann Sigurdsson, Roar Maagaard and others). This version was mainly based on our NFGP experience:
“Vision WONCA Europe's vision is to improve the quality of life of people through fostering high standards of care in general practice/family medicine which:
is salutogenic and sustainable, carefully balancing biomedical and humanistic approaches to health, illness and disease”.
At that WE Council meeting, some of our participants pointed out that we (WE) should take more notice of UN-SDGs and express more clearly what we mean by “sustainable”.
2023. Based on this discussion, a new revision of “The European definition of General Practice/Family Medicine” was launched at the WONCA Europe Council meeting in Brussels June 2023, with explicit expression that “One Health, Planetary Health and Sustainability is the bedrock of 2023 Revision of the European definition of Family Medicine”. This new version was endorsed and accepted.
Status present
There is a growing interest and understanding among laypeople and professionals that strong and effective actions need to be taken regarding global warming, and global sustainable development. The health care sector is one of the targets to reach UN SDGs as its activity is responsible for about 5% of CO2 output in the atmosphere, compared about 4,5% by all airplane flights in the world.
NFGP considers that within the health sector, well organized primary health care, based on its core values and principles, is the one of the best ways to reach UN-SDG, as Family Medicine/General Practice Core Values addresses its comprehensive role in the health care system, taking not only Health into consideration but also several others of UNs SDGs i.e.:
SDG no 3 Health Care SDG no 4 Quality Education SDG no 5, Gender Equality SDG no 10 Reduced inequalities SDG no 11, Sustainable cities and communities (underdeveloped etc) SDG no 12. Responsible consumption or use of resources SDG no 13 Climate SDG no 17 Partnership°for the Goals Fig.
At present there exist already many groups among our Nordic colleagues working on sustainable health care, much of this activity is of interest in our Nordic setting.
Preliminary Ideas Regarding Tasks of a NFGP Working Group and Network
To promote and advocate for General Practice/Family Medicine through its core values and principles and UN SDGs
To share ideas among other groups in our Nordic countries.