This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

Health system governance in Europe : the role of European Union law and policy / Elias Mossialos ... [et al.] -- Health care and the EU : the law and policy patchwork / Tamara Hervey and Bart Vanhercke -- EU regulatory agencies and health protection / Govin Permanand and Ellen Vos -- The hard politics of soft law : the case of health / Scott L. Greer and Bart Vanhercke -- Public health policies / Martin McKee, Tamara Hervey and Anna Gilmore -- Fundamental rights and health care / Jean McHale -- EU competition law and public services / Tony Prosser -- EU competition law and health policy / Julia Lear, Elias Mossialos and Beatrix Karl -- Public procurement and state aid in national health care systems / Vassilis Hatzopoulos --Private health insurance and the internal market / Sarah Thomson and Elias Mossialos -- Free movement of services in the EU and health care / Wouter Gekiere, Rita Baeten and Willy Palm -- Enabling patient mobility in the EU : between free movement and coordination / Willy Palm and Irene A. Glinos -- The EU legal network on e-health / Stefaan Callens -- EU law and health professionals / Miek Peeters, Martin McKee and Sherry Merkur -- The EU pharmaceuticals market : parameters and pathways / Leigh Hancher

For many citizens primary health care is the first point of contact with their health care system, where most of their health needs are satisfied but also acting as the gate to the rest of the system. In that respect primary care plays a crucial role in how patients value health systems as responsive to their needs and expectations. This volume analyses the way how primary are is organized and delivered across European countries, looking at governance, financing and workforce aspects and the breadth of the service profiles. It describes wide national variations in terms of accessibility, continuity and coordination. Relating these differences to health system outcomes the authors suggest some priority areas for reducing the gap between the ideal and current realities.

Focussing on the health sector, this book analyses the closely interwoven relationship between the European Union and Member States.

Exploring the capacity and impact of decentralization within European health care systems, this book examines both the theoretical underpinnings as well as practical experience with decentralization.

A team of world-leading policy experts and clinicians analyse the changing role of the hospital across Europe.

What are public health services? Countries across Europe understand what they are or what they should include differently. This study describes the experiences of nine countries detailing the ways they have opted to organize and finance public health services and train and employ their public health workforce. It covers England France Germany Italy the Netherlands Slovenia Sweden Poland and the Republic of Moldova and aims to give insights into current practice that will support decision-makers in their efforts to strengthen public health capacities and services. Each country chapter captures the historical background of public health services and the context in which they operate; sets out the main organizational structures; assesses the sources of public health financing and how it is allocated; explains the training and employment of the public health workforce; and analyses existing frameworks for quality and performance assessment. The study reveals a wide range of experience and variation across Europe and clearly illustrates two fundamentally different approaches to public health services: integration with curative health services (as in Slovenia or Sweden) or organization and provision through a separate parallel structure (Republic of Moldova). The case studies explore the context that explain this divergence and its implications. This study is the result of close collaboration between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe Division of Health Systems and Public Health. It accompanies two other Observatory publications Organization and financing of public health services in Europe and The role of public health organizations in addressing public health problems in Europe: the case of obesity alcohol and antimicrobial resistance (both forthcoming).

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) can make a vital contribution to public health and health systems but harnessing their potential is complex in a Europe where government-CSO relations vary so profoundly. This study is intended to outline some of the challenges and assist policy-makers in furthering their understanding of the part CSOs can play in tandem and alongside government. To this end it analyses existing evidence and draws on a set of seven thematic chapters and six mini case studies. They examine experiences from Austria Bosnia-Herzegovina Belgium Cyprus Finland Germany Malta the Netherlands Poland the Russian Federation Slovenia Turkey and the European Union and make use of a single assessment framework to understand the diverse contexts in which CSOs operate. The evidence shows that CSOs are ubiquitous varied and beneficial and the topics covered in this study reflect such diversity of aims and means: anti-tobacco advocacy food banks refugee health HIV/AIDS prevention and cure and social partnership. CSOs make a substantial contribution to public health and health systems with regards to policy development service delivery and governance. This includes evidence provision advocacy mobilization consensus building provision of medical services and of services related to the social determinants of health standard setting self-regulation and fostering social partnership. However in order to engage successfully with CSOs governments do need to make use of adequate tools and create contexts conducive to collaboration. To guide policy-makers working with CSOs through such complications and help avoid some potential pitfalls the book outlines a practical framework for such collaboration. This suggests identifying key CSOs in a given area; clarifying why there should be engagement with civil society; being realistic as to what CSOs can or will achieve; and an understanding of how CSOs can be helped to deliver.

How are public health services in Europe organized and financed? With European health systems facing a plethora of challenges that can be addressed through public health interventions there is renewed interest in strengthening public health services. Yet there are enormous gaps in our knowledge. How many people work in public health? How much money is spent on public health? What does it actually achieve? None of these questions can be answered easily. This volume brings together current knowledge on the organization and financing of public health services in Europe. It is based on country reports on the organization and financing of public health services in nine European countries and an in-depth analysis of the involvement of public health services in addressing three contemporary public health challenges (alcohol obesity and antimicrobial resistance). The focus is on four core dimensions of public health services: organization financing the public health workforce and quality assurance. The questions the volume seeks to answer are: o How are public health services in Europe organized? Are there good practices that can be emulated? What policy options are available? o How much is spent on public health services? Where do resources come from? And what was the impact of the economic crisis? o What do we know about the public health workforce? How can it be strengthened? o How is the quality of public health services being assured? What should quality assurance systems for public health services look like? This study is the result of close collaboration between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe Division of Health Systems and Public Health. It accompanies two other Observatory publications: Organization and financing of public health services in Europe: country reports and The role of public health organizations in addressing public health problems in Europe: the case of obesity alcohol and antimicrobial resistance.

There is no European Union health system but there is an EU health policy. The EU affects the health of its citizens, the health of people around the world, and the operation and finance of its Member States' healthcare systems in many ways, mostly for the better, and often in ways that are poorly understood. This book, a completely revised second edition of our previous volume on the subject, maps out the nature of EU health policies, their logic and reason for being, and their potential to affect the health of Europeans for the better. It is written in the belief that understanding the breadth and diversity of EU health policies, and the distinctive institutional structure that explains them, will improve our collective abilities to make policy for health in any sphere, from food to healthcare services and from occupational safety to international trade. Above all, we hope that this book makes it impossible to deny the scale and often indirect and positive impact of EU health policy. EU health policies extend far beyond the Public Health Article 168, from the environmental, social policy and consumer protection policies discussed alongside it in chapter 3, to the extensive internal market laws that have made so much beneficial EU regulatory policy, discussed in chapter 4, to the ambitious fiscal governance agenda discussed in chapter 5, which has increasingly developed a health focus. Across a broad sweep of policies from RescEU's civil protection to the regulation of pharmacies, the EU is omnipresent in health and health policy. It should be understood as such. The question is not whether we want an EU health policy, for EU health policy is inevitable. It is how it should be made and for what ends.