W4H-2030 Seminar 1 – ‘The first in line: The complex challenges of Primary Health Care service delivery, whilst enabling and retaining the workforce’

Globally, many national countries and their health leaders have sought to strengthen their primary health care workforce, as part of national health system strengthening initiatives and activities.

Primary health care enables health systems to support a person’s health needs – from health promotion to disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, palliative care and more. Amidst demographic and health condition shifts like ageing, disability, chronic disease and re-emergence of communicable diseases, people increasingly need care that responds to increasingly complex disease burdens. This care will need to be better co-ordinated across the service delivery pathway, and more accessible to the individual (financially, geographically, and chronologically). This makes integrated primary health care service delivery – and education to development the requisite knowledge and skills in health and care workers – ever more vital. Yet primary health care in many cases must operate within significant constraints. 

Seminar one will look at areas such as:

  • What do we understand by ‘primary health care?’ Is it universally understood? What do we want from it? 
  • What does this mean for the shape of the workforce needed to deliver this form of care provision? Are there common lessons for practitioners around the globe?   
  • Are there positive examples from around the globe of sustainable and/or innovative approaches to workforce employment and incentives for the development and service delivery of primary health care? 

Chair: Professor Simon Gregory – Simon is Health Education England’s (HEE) Medical Director (Primary and Integrated Care) with responsibility for GP/ Primary Care, Dentistry, Differential Attainment, Mental Health and Wellbeing. Simon is a GP and is a fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, a Trustee and Council member.

Niclas Forsling – Niclas started at Centre for Rural Medicine in 2018 and during 2018-2021 was project manager for “Healthcare and Care – through distance spanning solutions”, which formed part of the Swedish government’s presidency program for the Nordic Council of Ministers. Niclas has also a long-standing background as Head of Secretariat for transnational Interreg European cooperation.

Doctor Yoseph Mamo – Dr Yoseph is a medical doctor from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He has recently been working as an Honorary Associate Professor at Jimma University and as THET’s Country Director in Ethiopia, leading their Chronic Disease Programme. Dr Mamo has most recently assisted the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health with the localisation of PACK (a practical approach to care kit) for primary care utilisation.

Doctor Katherine Rouleau – Dr Katherine Rouleau is a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and the Vice-Chair of Global Health and Social Accountability in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. Her clinical and academic interests include health equity, the role of family medicine and primary care in strengthening health systems locally and globally, global health education, the scholarship-leadership continuum and the care of disadvantaged populations in Canada and abroad.

Professor Niro Siriwardena – Professor Niro is a professor of Primary and Prehospital Health Care at the University of Lincoln. He is the director of the Community and Health Research Unit, a research centre at the University of Lincoln, focussed on quality improvement and implementation research including studies on education, training and licensing of GPs.

Cristine Hancock – Christine Hancock is the Founder and Director of the C3 Collaborating for Health Organisation, and has recently delivered programmes in Tanzania, South Africa and Kenya. Christine was formerly the CEO of both the Royal College of Nursing and Waltham Forest’s NHS and is now on the NHS Health & Wellbeing Advisory Board. A trained economist Christine believes in the power of data, clear evidence and a good case to secure resources to support better health outcomes for marginalised people.

Here is the link to the recording of the seminar.