Healthcare systems are struggling to find solutions to the mounting pandemic of inequity of healthcare provision. Debilitating inequalities of access to care are spiralling, which is a critical barrier to delivery of equitable care. Solving health inequalities in healthcare does not wholly lie with any one stakeholder. Sustainable success and solutions will only be delivered through clarity of goals, innovative and inclusive community-based programmes, conscious collaborations between the public and private sector, and accelerated, measured impact.

The session will convene eminent experts to discuss barriers and benchmarks to support improved equitable access to healthcare for at-risk communities. Panellists will reflect on real-life learnings, including those from the COVID-19 pandemic, and debate what a potential 2030 roadmap to success looks like for the EU Member States.  What are the building blocks policymakers and system funders need to have in place to be able to provide and facilitate the impact from a consortium of players? How can we incentivise collective and innovative thinking? What do we expect specifically from the pharmaceutical sector?

We invite you to join this session, delivered by Porter Novelli Health, to explore how to best support goals to remove health inequalities across Europe through innovative policy design.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, national governments took complex policy decisions for the good of public health and with the aim to limit transmission and save lives. Some of these public health measures raised difficult ethical questions about proportionality when individuals’ freedoms were restricted in the name of the common good.

In this session, we will look at the lessons learned from the current pandemic and reflect on the complexity of the measures taken in the pursuit of bringing a pandemic under control and protecting lives, whilst also safeguarding peoples’ wellbeing, respecting individual rights and protecting livelihoods.

We will reflect on whether public health ethics should be integrated in future preparedness planning and how we can work together in a multisectoral way. What evidence and mechanisms are needed to embed these into governance structures with a view to a healthier, more equitable and sustainable future for all?

EU Member State representatives will also share their experiences, and talk about the rationale and processes behind their public health efforts during the pandemic.

Join us in the discussions where we aim to actively engage with you.

As the COVID-19 dust slowly settles, we are reminded of public health enemy number one: the rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Existing efforts to prevent NCDs are clearly not sufficient to weather the socio-economic storm caused by ageing populations and lowering fertility rate.  Societies shall face economic and resource challenges in the prevention of inequitable healthcare.

The most effective solution to ensure sustainable and fair healthcare systems is to shift their design to keeping people healthier for longer, and to prevent the preventable. Enter predictive genomics.

What is predictive genomics, and can it innovate prevention? What are the risks? Four experts will debate these questions and more in a fast-paced debate where the audience participants will have their say on the future of predictive genomics.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis have reminded us once again that health promotion and building community capacity for health are crucial building blocks for the long-term well-being of our society, for solidarity and for resilient and responsive settings and health systems. They provide new approaches for sustainability and contribute to the co-creation of wellbeing societies as proclaimed in the Geneva Charter for Wellbeing, as well as to the European Health Union and the European Green Deal Strategy.

In this session we will:

Join us to discuss the inter-connectedness of health promotion, re-orienting health services and climate action and envision how local initiatives, innovative intersectoral approaches and policy developments at the European level can work together to make a difference.

The Economy of Wellbeing (EoW) is a policy and governance approach which puts people and their wellbeing at the centre of decision-making. The EoW covers material factors, such as housing, income and jobs, and factors related to quality of life such as education, skills, health, gender equality and security. In the long term, an EoW aims at strengthening equity, societal resilience and environmental sustainability. The COVID-19 experience demonstrates how crucial an EoW can be to the short- and medium-term fiscal sustainability and societal stability.

While not being an entirely new model, the EoW is a policy change-maker and has far-reaching economic, social and political implications. Investing in people´s health and wellbeing has wider co-benefits for other sectors, including economic growth and environmental sustainability, while not doing so generates wider societal co-costs.

This session highlights the real-world significance and experiences of piloting, scaling-up and implementing the EoW - in the EU and beyond.

Despite being the most common cause of death from infections, including COVID-19, sepsis is not yet sufficiently known amongst lay people and health professionals. One in five deaths worldwide is caused by sepsis.

Low awareness rates make it difficult for patients and clinicians to detect sepsis symptoms in time and respond adequately. However, sepsis can be easily treated. Early recognition and cost-effective tools can save lives and minimise the socio-economic burden on health systems. Yet, still today, too many sepsis patients die or suffer long-term consequences from wrong diagnoses and therapies.

In this session, we will learn about sepsis from the patient perspective, share new data on the quality of sepsis care, and discuss its importance in infection management and AMR strategies. We will present sepsis as an indicator of the quality of care, explore best practices in sepsis management, and discuss how harmonised approaches at the EU level could save lives across Europe.

As healthcare budgets become increasingly under pressure from a number of factors, not least the rising cost of pharmaceuticals have caused concern for healthcare payers and therefore attracted much attention from policy-makers in a continent where access to universal health is the guiding principle.

As the EU prepares for a thorough revision of the pharmaceutical legislation, the question is if and how the EU can deliver for healthcare payers and ultimately patients?

This session draws on the views of healthcare payers, patients, and industry to consider the options available for the EU to deliver on the affordability agenda. Stronger evidence gathering, increased competition (both inter- and intra-brand) and exclusivity periods are among the key topics the experts will discuss with the welcome input of the participants.

Listen to members of the NLO network discuss the EHFG programme through the lens of marginalised communities, interview relevant experts, and envision what must be done to make sure nobody is left outside when creating a true European Health Union.

Health systems are facing significant challenges from a fiscal sustainability perspective. Reasons range from the growing health and long-term care demands of an ageing population to costly technological progress in medical services and the impact of pandemics. To cope with rising health expenditures, the availability of funding is key to ensuring sustainable, innovative, and resilient health systems. It is therefore crucial to demonstrate the financial sustainability of investments in health and the concomitant benefits to all stakeholders.

This session will examine existing and potential future funding mechanisms and other innovative solutions contributing to make health systems more sustainable, environmentally friendlier, and efficient while delivering high quality care. Through insights from public funders, best practices, new initiatives, and interactive discussions, the session will reflect on how to address existing and forthcoming challenges to achieve a sustainable and innovative health system within a common European Health Union.

Organ donation is one of the truest acts of solidarity. Yet, policies and practices in donation, transplantation, and aftercare differ across Europe, resulting in unequal transplantation access and disparate patient outcomes. The European Health Union must strive for equity in access and quality of care no matter where patients live, creating a level playing field across the bloc.

Building upon the EU Action Plan on Organ Donation and Transplantation (2009-2015), this session will explore what needs to be done, and by whom, to facilitate equity, efficiency, quality, and safety for all patients so nobody is left behind. An EU-wide data framework, patient literacy, national policies, and clinical practice guidelines can help ensure a successful transplantation journey.

Our speakers encompass patients, clinicians, data experts, national officials, and EU policymakers. We invite you to join this session to help the European Society for Organ Transplantation validate and refine its Manifesto, obtaining further endorsement in the future.